Wrought Iron Hero
by Unlimited Blade Works
Summary: They shouldn't exist. They needed to die, yes all those things had was the right to be destroyed, that was all. They were an existence that none of us who had seen them could approve of, and the one who killed them? Well, it would not be an exaggeration to say that since that day we were captivated. By the black and white swords he held under the moonlight.
1. Chapter 1

**Wrought Iron Hero**

**Chapter One: Black and White**

Authors Note-

I would like it to be noted that this story was originally in only the ordinary Naruto section but i decided to add it to the crossover section as well because as i move the plot along i find myself adding more and more type moon characters.

So it finally happened, I finally broke down and wrote a Naruto fan fiction with cross over elements from Fate Stay Night (After being annoyed about doing one for the last three months by a friend). What you are reading right now is the very first chapter, and maybe the last depending on the kinds of reviews I get about this. I tossed up putting this in the cross over section but decided against it as I will be using elements and not actual characters, though the abilities of characters from Fate Stay Night will be inherited by the Naruto characters.

Okay now for a little back ground information,

Okay first and foremost, the Biju do not exist. There I said it, yes no giant monsters of mass destruction. The sage managed to seal the ten tails in it's entirety instead of needing to spilt it, so that's a major change right there.

In addition to that Uzumaki clan was not destroyed, Uzu was however. The remaining Uzumaki clan members moved to Konoha. Twenty years later, the time period where this story starts, there are around one hundred and fifty Uzumaki's living inside Konoha.

The Namikaze are a clan in this, what their abilities are will be revealed later.

Kushina is not Naruto's mother but instead his friend, though his father is still Minato. Yes this story is a Naru X Kushi pairing, what can I say, it is my favourite pairing of all time. Because if they were not related in cannon. based on their personalities alone, they would be made for each other.

Since most of my stories seem to end up as harems I will consider, note the word **consider**,changing this to a harem as well, however if anyone wants it to be changed then I expect to be given a convincing argument as to why it should become a harem fic and no use of the C.R.A (Clan Restoration Act) for two reasons, reason one: the Uzumaki and Namikaze clans are large enough not to need it and two: It feels like a cop-out.

So there you have it, my stipulations for a harem is more or less a convincing argument and a good reason, I don't feel like I am asking to much there either.

As for how powers from the Type-Moon verse ended up in Naruto. That will be explained later. Oh also any type moon fans that see something that they feel really should be changed due to the rules of the type moon verse please feel free to send me a PM so that I can change it or just leave a review.

Thank Zimbolical for doing, as always, a wonderful job as my BETA.

"Talking"

'Thinking'

**Story Start-**

The boy was perched above his target, breathe, in, out. Don't stress yourself, don't think, just act. The boy dived inside his own mind. It was there, the imaginary switch that would connect him. The boy took another breath, his blond hair swaying in the wind. The stars above illuminating the ground below on a moonless night. He could feel it, the imaginary hammer was cocked, in a second it would fall sending the 'bullet' into his brain and allowing him to become, however briefly, something other than human. The hammer came down and the blond felt the familiar feeling of prana flowing through his magic circuits, the boy looked down waiting for his target to appear.

A man stumbled out of the darkness, his face gaunt and white. Eyes unfocused, the boy smelled something foul, something that had no business being near a human. The boy looked at the man, he would have to die, his consciousness was already corroded, right now he was more a walking corpse than a human, to kill him would be a mercy. The man passed underneath him and the boy dropped. "Trace on" two simple words, alone they mean nothing, but to the boy they are the words that connect him. His body is reinforced by magic as he dropped, landing lightly on the ground he charged. The thing inside a man's body spun, in time to catch the boy's fist connecting with its face. The boy knew he would have to finish this quickly, he charged again. Coming up inside the man's guard and hitting him hard in the ribs, he felt bone break and allowed himself a small smile.

His left leg rose and broke the things jaw, sending the inhuman thing flying back. The boy charged again, the thing smiled at him and he leaped away as shadows burst from it's body and cut apart the ground he had been standing on. The boy grimaced, that was going to make things harder. His hands came out to his sides and grasped the hilts of the weapons that have yet to exist. "Trace on" the boy muttered again, the swords formed in his hands. One as bright as white moonlight, the other, as black as the shadow he was facing. Kanshou and Bakuya, married twin swords, yin and yang Chinese saber's in his hands, their combined weight a familiar companion to the boy.

The boy took his stance, blades held loosely to his sides. It was a foolish choice if one looked at the stance from afar, and the choice would have seemingly remained foolish, until you locked blades with him. The style was designed from the ground up to allow a person who was human to fight those that were inhuman, like the boy's opponent. The boy charged forward, Bakuya slashed and was repelled and so Kanshou took his turn aiming to cut down the boy's enemy. The inhuman thing in a man's body dodged and the boy smiled as he saw the shadows come for him, his arms blurred. Kanshou and Bakuya moved in perfect sync with each other, Kanshou attacked, Bakuya defended, Bakuya attacked, Kanshou supported. The boy moved around the strikes like a dancer, his movements like flowing water clean and pure.

A shadow tendril was cut off by Bakuya, the boy met no resistance to his cut. After all, the twin married swords were made to fight monsters such as this. The boy twisted as another tendril of shadow tried to take his head, missing by a hairs breadth. The boy stepped in close, Kanshou and Bakuya never stopping their dance of death, he could see the look of confusion on the things face. He couldn't help the smile he found on his own, the fight sped up again, shadow tendrils coming at him from every angle, the boy's furious and desperate blade dance became faster. Cutting apart the shadows as they reached him, earning himself a cut on his face for his trouble. The boy grimaced as he began to feel his arms getting numb but continued onward none the less. The shadow struck, the boy jumped, spinning in mid air, he landed on one knee behind his foe, Kanshou outstretched. The boy didn't need to look back. He already felt it, the resistance to his cut. He threw a quick look at Kanshou, a black blood like substance coated the blade. The boy looked back to the body that broke apart into shadows, the boy took a deep breath and jumped to the roofs and looked out upon the sprawling expanse that was Konohagakure no Sato.

No one would know what he had done here tonight, that was fine with him. After all, the boy wasn't doing this for thanks. He had his ideal, which was all that mattered. The boy took a deep breath and looked up to the sky, the clouds that had drifted across the sky while he was locked in battle parted slightly, allowing starlight to illuminate his face even on this moonless night. Blond hair, spiky, but with a small amount of red through it. Blue eyes that shined with determination, a slightly rounded face betraying his connection to his mother. Namikaze-Uzumaki Naruto looked up at the sky and sighed, the attacks were getting more frequent but what could that mean? The Uzumaki allowed the married swords to be crushed by Gaia, they were not supposed to exist anyway. The blond shook his head and refocused on his task, killing the shadows by any means necessary. "Trace off" He was done for tonight, it was good no one had seen him. It would raise too many uncomfortable questions. The blond angled for his home, the Namikaze compound, the time of his fight was over for now. When morning came he would be Namikaze-Uzumaki Naruto once more and would enjoy the brief peace, when night fell again he would be the inheritor of counter guardian EMIYA, the wrought iron hero. The blond was so tired that he didn't see the flash of red following him from behind.

**XXX**

Namikaze-Uzumaki Setsuna was a rather proud woman, she was proud of the family she had raised, proud of her ancestors and most of all, proud of her three children. Right now it was her children that had her worried, her eldest, Naruto, was the cause of her concern. For the last three years he had cut himself off from the clan, isolating himself from others. While his studies and such were still quite good they were also slipping, and he would not tell her anything. When he was younger, up until he was nine years old, she had the best relationship with him out of all three of her children. As Naruto took after her the most while his younger brother and sister took more after their father. Then when he turned nine he slowly started distancing himself from the clan, both the Uzumaki and the Namikaze sides. Then he started to close off around his friends, eventually closing his oldest, and closest, friend Kushina out all together. Then finally over time he closed out his own family, first his father, then his brother Akio, his sister Mayumi and finally her.

Worse he never gave a reason for it. Minato and she were starting to get to their wits end about what they could do to bring him back into the family. But nothing worked, they had tried spending time with him but Naruto would respectfully decline, training him Naruto would accept but still keep his distance, even when they went out as a family it was the same. He would always keep his distance from them. Worse, Setsuna knew he didn't want to. It was only for a second but occasionally she would see flashes of pain in Naruto's eyes when he avoided them or kept his distance. It was especially prevalent around Kushina, Mayumi and her. Before he closed himself off you would never have found better friends than Uzumaki Kushina and Namikaze-Uzumaki Naruto, he doted on Mayumi whenever he could, despite only being one year older than her and he had always called her Kaa-chan and talked to her about everything or even helped her make dinner. It was totally out of character for him to close himself off like that, and yet it can and did happen, and so Setsuna was conflicted, what could have happened to her son to make him like this?

The Namikaze matriarch stood up from her bed, her husband still sleeping soundly on the other side, and walked down stairs to get a drink. She looked at herself in the mirror. She was five foot three, with long red hair that stretched down to her ankles, a slightly chubby face that only Naruto had inherited from her out of her three children and vibrant purple eyes, full of life. She tip toed down the hallway being careful not to wake her children, especially Naruto, after all he had graduation tomorrow. She sighed again as she thought about her eldest, what was she supposed to do to get him back? Setsuna sighed as she filled her glass with water and looked out to the star filled night sky. Only for her to almost drop her cup as she saw her first born fly through the air away from the compound, she took a quick look the clock, it was eleven o'clock at night, what was he doing?

Setsuna looked down at herself, she was still in her nightgown and it didn't matter. The red head pulled on her ninja sandals and ran out the door. Perhaps whatever was happening now was what was causing her baby to cut himself off from her, if it was she was going to find out. If it wasn't, then her eldest would get a scolding from her for going out of the house so late. Setsuna followed her blond child, growing ever more apprehensive as she saw him angle for one of the less populated districts. What was he doing there? Why was he going there? Who was he meeting? What had happened to her little bundle of joy? Was the person that had taken him away from her in this place? The homes around them grew steadily more dilapidated and eventually in a very out of the way corner Naruto stopped and looked at the ground like he was waiting for something.

Setsuna was about to walkout and say something but she felt like she should wait. Naruto's head came up and he looked towards a dark spot between the houses. Then Setsuna felt it, it felt like rotting refuse had just been pushed into her soul. Setsuna was a good chakra sensor, a very, very, good sensor. The Uzumaki could tell a lot about a person from their chakra, but this, this was something else and not even Orochimaru's chakra had ever felt this vile and monstrous before. She saw her son's eyes narrow at an ally and turned her attention to it. The man was in a bad way Setsuna could see that, his skin was pale and his eyes vacant, Naruto seemed to tense seeing him. "Trace on" it was less than even a whisper but Setsuna could still hear it even if it was only barely.

She saw Naruto drop off the roof and attack the man, she stood to intervene, she had raised him better than this, why was he doing this? Horror filled her eyes as she saw the shadows burst from the man's body and attack her son. That feeling, that awful vile feeling came back, its loathsome taint filling the air around her. "Trace on" the words were said again and black and white swords, Chinese Piandao if she was not mistaken, dropped into her son's waiting hands. Setsuna's eyes focused on the swords, she had never seen them before of that she was certain, Setsuna was a swordswoman herself after all she would have remembered swords like that. Why would she remember if she had seen those swords before? It was quite simple it seemed like they were crafted more for the sake of crafting, as if questioning the meaning of the swordsmith, than for any real idea behind their creation. They were created without vanity, and they lacked a sense of purpose found in other swords. They contained no fighting spirit to defeat others or competitive spirit to beat other weapons, and they contain neither the desire to be famous nor the faith to accomplish great deeds. They were an enigma, one she would have remembered had she seen them before.

Then there was the way her son had summoned the swords, "trace on", what did those words mean. More importantly how were they connected to the swords, Setsuna was an Uzumaki by blood and knew seals better than almost anyone else alive. In her own field of Fuuinjutsu she was unsurpassed in her knowledge. Because of this Setsuna knew that Naruto had not used a seal to summon the blades, which left the question of how he did so. More importantly who did he learn it from, she saw her son charge and her heart felt like it was in her throat. But it seemed like he was a far better swordsmen than he ever had let on, his dodges and parries, his attacks and his defence, they all surpassed what he had showed her in the past. Why was he hiding it? What was his reason for doing so? Why was he fighting that monster? Her child charged again, Setsuna held a Jutsu ready to kill whatever that thing was should she need to, but right now it was like something was telling her to wait again. Naruto jumped into the air and spun, he landed behind the inhuman thing and its head came free of its body. Then broke down into shadows, Naruto jumped back up to the roofs and looked at the sky, Setsuna was further intrigued when the yin and yang swords seemingly broke apart. When her son started to run back towards the compound she followed, thoughts rushing through her head.

The first and most obvious one being what should she do? She could wait for him to tell her in his own time, but Setsuna doubted that would work. After all she had been waiting and hoping for her son to tell her what was wrong for the last three years. She could confront him, but she didn't want to do that either, it could well just push Naruto further away from her. So what could she do? They both carried inherent risks, Setsuna sighed as she kept out of sight while following her son. She knew what she would do. The start of it all would be a seal. She would place it around the perimeter of the estate and key it to Naruto's chakra signature so she would know when he leaves. That way she could follow him and keep him safe, when she finally had enough information she would approach Naruto about what had been happening. Setsuna had a good idea why he distanced himself from the family now. Naruto didn't want them involved in whatever was going on, she smiled to herself. It seemed that even in distancing himself Naruto was trying to do what was right by their family, no matter how it hurt him in the process. She couldn't help but smile at her foolish, foolish, son, after all it was a mothers job to protect her child, not the other way around.

The two arrived back at the estate, Naruto slipped back into his room through the window. Setsuna just used the front door. The red head took off her sandals and walked to her son's room and opened the door a crack. Naruto had already passed out on his bed. He hadn't even bothered to change out of his clothes. Setsuna walked into her child's room, keeping her steps light. She placed a small kiss on his forehead before tucking him into his sheets. The Namikaze matriarch walked out of Naruto's room with a smile on her face, it wasn't much, but she was a step closer to bringing her son back to his family. When she did Setsuna would show her child that he should have just trusted her to begin with. "Thank you Kaa-chan" Naruto mumbled out in his sleep, Setsuna couldn't help the smile that came to her face. Naruto had stopped calling her Kaa-chan when he was nine. Reverting to the more formal Kaa-san and now he simply called her Oka-sama. As well as being as formal as he could with the rest of the family, it seemed that he still wanted to call them less formally though.

Setsuna went back to her room, it was a step forward. It might not be today and it might not be tomorrow, but soon, one day very soon, she would have her son back. Setsuna laid down to dream of that day, Naruto lay sleeping and not for the first time in the last three years, the blond boy dreamed of swords and battle, a corrupted grail and a guardian that lost his way.

**Wrought Iron Hero- Chapter One End**


	2. Chapter 2

**Wrought Iron Hero**

**Chapter Two: Wakizashi**

**Author's note-**

And welcome to chapter one time for some more background information.

The first piece being that the Uchiha clan wasn't completely wiped out, only around forty of them were killed and that was done when it was found out they were planning a coup. So the shame is completely on those forty and not the entire Uchiha clan. As a matter of face most of Konoha think more highly of the Uchiha as they killed off the traitors rather than tried to let them live.

The second piece is that Naruto refers to his abilities as magic, yes I do know the difference between magecraft and magic but he doesn't when Naruto finds out the difference he will start calling it magecraft.

Moving right along, there is a bit of a domestic scene in this chapter and I feel like I should clarify this now, in this scene Naruto is acting like he used to with his family. In comparison these day's he normally avoids them as much as possible. Also some parts of this chapter, I think, feel a little forced so if anyone picks up on that please do leave it in a review so I can fix it up next chapter.

Oh also incase I wasn't clear Naruto is inheriting Archer's memories not Shirou's.

Other than that thank my BETA Zimbolical

"Talking"

'Thinking'

**Story Start-**

_Smog covered the land, choking off all life. There was no vegetation in this place; it was merely a dry expanse of earth, devoid of all life. A barren wasteland, monolithic gears slowly turning in the distance. The blond looked out over the wasteland, it made him want to lose hope, no, not lose hope, the very idea of hope was a foreign concept in this place. A kingdom of rubble littered with countless swords, a knight in red stands amongst the grave markers that surround him. To Naruto he looked, impressive and powerful, and yet so very, very, alone. Yes the knight stood alone at the centre of his kingdom of rubble._

_The knight had lost his hope, Naruto could see that. The trials and tribulations of his life had ground him down until nothing remained. Nothing but a blade remained, a blade that was at its breaking point. His white hair was ruffled in a non-existent breeze as ash fell from the sky, this is hell. This place could only be called hell, is this really how the knight views the world? That was just sad, that was just far too sad._

_The blond looked at the sky and saw memories that were not his own, he talked to a white haired girl with red eyes that he never met, a blond with green eyes and the baring of a king, a hyper active woman that came to his home to eat almost every day. Those days they were so peaceful, Naruto could honestly say that those days were most likely the happiest of the knight's life. After that came his hell, not the hell that was the wasteland around him, but the hell of loneliness. He saw the knight fight against insurmountable odds time and time again, never so much as asking __thanks for his actions, his actions were their own reward. Yes to the knight simply seeing people smile was enough of a reward._

_In the beginning he had companions by his side. A girl with black hair dressed in red, a girl whose hair was a pale purple holding a bow, a blue haired woman in robes holding several swords in each hand. A man dressed like a lord smoking a cigar, another man this one's eyes wrapped in bandages who was holding the hand of a woman with short blond hair and red eyes. His companions seemed to stretch as far as the eye could see, and then slowly, over time they dwindled away. Most lost their lives on the battlefield, others simply couldn't keep up with the knight and left of their own free will. Through it all, the knight continued to stand in that hell of swords, the last to die was the girl in red, who looked at him so sadly. Why was she sad though? What was she sad for? The knight was pursuing his dream, why was she so sad about that?_

_After she died Naruto's answer was given to him, the knight, for the sake of people he didn't even know, sold his life to the world in exchange for power. The knight changed, and like a man possessed managed to save people that otherwise would have died, why? Why did he sacrifice himself? The people he saved numbered less than one hundred; he gave up eternity for less than one hundred people, but why?_

_He saw the knight stop the last of a regime that oppressed an entire country. The people blamed him for starting a war, why? Why did they blame him? He gave his all to help them, so why? Why did they blame the red knight for something that clearly wasn't his fault. The man walked to his own execution, head held high and then died, with a smile on his face. It was as if he was saying that so long as he had been able to save as many people as possible, to make even one person smile, then his life was never a waste._

_The blade that would take the knights life flew towards him._

"AHHH!" Naruto shot bolt upright from his bed, breathing heavy. It was another of those dreams, another of the dreams about the red knight. He looked over at the clock, four am, might as well start his day, after all it wasn't like he was going to be getting back to sleep any time soon. The Namikaze pulled himself out of his bed, time for another day of enjoying peace and acting like a jackass towards people he loved, joy.

Naruto wasn't an idiot, the blond was very much aware that he was hurting both himself and the people around him by distancing himself. The problem was he couldn't think of a better plan to keep them uninvolved, or at least he couldn't when the dreams first started when he was nine. If you had asked him now what a better plan would be, the answer would have been simple. He would have acted like nothing was wrong while taking care of business where no one could see; after all distancing himself like that was practically screaming out that something was wrong. The problem was that once he had realised that it was already far too late to change his plan, so the blond simply did the best with what he had.

Not that he really had very much, a few dreams, instinctive knowledge of the shadow's and the ability to control a power no one had ever heard of and that he didn't completely understand. It wasn't like he had some kind of instruction manual for his magic, all he had were theories and a rough idea on what he could do thanks to the dreams. Hell if it wasn't for the fact he knew the shadows were real; Naruto would have made an appointment with a psychiatrist to work out what ever issues that he had. The blond sighed and pushed himself out of bed, he couldn't feel any shadow's, maybe he would actually get a full night's sleep for the first time in Kami only knows how long.

Naruto stepped lightly down the hall; he didn't want to wake anyone. The blond was rather lucky that the home had three levels; it would keep the noise he made in the kitchen to a minimum for the people sleeping. He had graduation today, graduation, and he barely had three and a half hours sleep, well that was just fucking great. "Why do you hate me Kami?" Naruto asked, looking up as if expecting some kind of answer from the deity. Naturally none came; Naruto dragged himself into the kitchen and pulled out a chopping board.

Very quickly the smell of cut onions filled the kitchen, Naruto had wondered every now and then if the dreams were affecting him more than he thought. After all while he had enjoyed cooking with his mother, now he just seemed to love cooking in general, could there be some bleed over from the knight's personality to his own? The blond considered it for a second before going back to cutting his onions; it really didn't matter at this point, if there was any bleed over it was already too late for him to do anything about it. The blond grabbed two eggs out of the fridge and whisked them, all the while a contemplative expression on his face.

His tracing, what else could he do with it, sure he could make Kanshou and Bakuya but what else. Naruto had seen the red knight use all kinds of swords but had never bothered to try replicating the feat; after all he didn't know if it was even possible for someone besides the red knight to do that and playing around with a power he barely understood was dangerous at best. Naruto decided to try a small experiment, he looked at the knife he had just finished using, "trace on" Naruto muttered to himself. The first skill he had learned, well learned was a bit of a stretch as it implied someone was teaching him, the first skill Naruto had been able to recreate had been something the red knight had called structural analysis. Naruto sent his senses outside his body using his prana to look at everything about the knife. Absorbing it all and copying it completely Naruto released the structural grasping and cupped his hand as if holding the knife.

'Trace on, beginning projection' step one judging the concept of creation, Naruto held a picture of the knife in his mind. Step two hypothesizing the basic structure; step three duplicating the composition material. Step four imitating the skill of its making, Naruto felt his prana shift in his circuits as if it was a hammer pounding on yielding metal. Step five sympathizing with the experience of its growth; Naruto could almost feel his mother's skilful hands using the knife. Step six reproducing the accumulated years, the blond took a deep breath; here it was, the moment of truth. The final step, step seven; was excelling every manufacturing process. Naruto felt his Od solidify into the world as a weight dropped into his hands. The blond smiled as he looked down, a perfect replica of the knife gripped tightly in his hand. Naruto looked at the clock, creating the knife had taken forty five seconds, creating Kanshou and Bakuya was virtually instantaneous.

It seemed like he would need to practise more before he could trace other things in battle, Naruto let his flow of Od to the weapon disappear and the knife broke apart. It seemed that the knife for all intents and purposes behaved like Kanshou and Bakuya, when he stopped adding his power to it the created weapon would disappear. This would warrant some more investigation, Naruto wondered if the knights other ability, alteration, could be used on the knife or even on Kanshou and Bakuya, before shrugging the thought off. Better to not get ahead of himself, he would have to be careful when experimenting with prana, the last thing he needed was to have to explain why something exploded.

Naruto went back to his cooking, the blond had decided that he would make something spectacular today, enough for his whole family. It would be the first time that he had done something like this in a long time; still he could let his guard down for a little while at least, it was a big day after all. Though Naruto could feel it somewhere in the back of his mind; the red knight would be disappointed by such an action, as it placed his happiness over his family's safety. Naruto ignored the feeling; he was not the red knight, even if he had similar abilities.

**XXX**

Setsuna yawned as she woke; the red head looked over at her clock, five thirty in the morning. Setsuna smiled to herself. The Namikaze matriarch had planned on getting up early today and making something special for breakfast. After all it was Naruto's big day after all, the red head slipped on her clothing and walked out of the bedroom, being careful not to wake her husband, After all this was supposed to be a surprise, both for Naruto and for everyone else.

Her thoughts turned back to that shadow, what was it? More importantly how did Naruto become involved in anything regarding it, Setsuna already knew that there were more creatures like that thing; Naruto had been acting strange for three years after all, so it wasn't a stretch of the imagination to assume that her eldest had been dealing with those things for at least that amount of time. But it raised some other questions, what was that shadow, how did it come to be, how did Naruto find out about them, they were questions that Setsuna, unfortunately, lacked the answers to.

The red head considered her plan, today would mark its beginning. She had already chosen the kind of seal she would use, a perimeter barrier seal, one keyed to Naruto's chakra signature. The barrier would also be used as a double layer so that she could track him after he left. As well as waking her up should she be asleep. The barrier itself would be linked to her via Fuuinjutsu, so that no one else could take advantage of it. The smell of cooking reached Setsuna's nose, it smelled like someone was using the oven, a roast maybe?

She walked into the kitchen to find Naruto with an open oven, adding another layer of marinade to some chicken. Before almost throwing the dish back into the oven and turning to the stove, that seemed to have at least three different pots on it. The blond immediately moved to one that looked like a soup and tasted it, before shrugging and throwing some dried chilli into the mix and nodding to himself, Naruto turned again and grabbed a knife and some vegetables and set about shredding them. Setsuna smiled, it had been a long time since she had seen her son like this, hell it had been a long time since Setsuna had seen him actually cook something. Normally he would be finished by the time she woke up, then again with the size of what he appeared to be cooking Naruto could well be making something for the whole family.

The red head walked and tasted the soup, spicy, with a hint of lemon and chicken. She threw a quick look at the clock it was six, she had thirty minutes before the remainder of the family woke up. Naruto still hadn't noticed her and was now busy shredding some beef, Setsuna took out a pot and filled it with water, before placing it on the stove and giving Naruto a quick tap on the shoulder, the blond was so surprised that he jumped onto the ceiling and stuck himself there using chakra. Knife firmly held in a defensive grip, the blond went bright red when he saw who had snuck up on him, Setsuna just laughed and pulled some fish out of the fridge and set about preparing it. Naruto dropped back to the floor and began shredding the beef again. Neither of them spoke to the other, they didn't need to, both Setsuna and Naruto had worked with each other often enough that talking while cooking was not necessary for them.

The Namikaze matriarch hummed as she cut some chilli and ginger. It had been a very, very long time since she had her son help her in the kitchen, well since she had anyone help her actually. Minato for all his genius in the ninja arts would probably burn water if he tried to boil it and unfortunately both Akio and Mayumi took after Minato in the cooking department. Only Naruto amongst her children had managed to learn how to cook without burning everything he touched, it was something of a bonding experience for the two. Her blond child opened the oven again and added more marinade to the chicken. It smelled of sugar and soy sauce, she was guessing it would be a teriyaki. Setsuna set about her own task of doing the fish, neither of them spoke to the other, not even so much as a simple good morning, they simply enjoyed the task and each other's company.

Minato dragged himself down stairs thirty minutes later eyes unfocused, Naruto sighed; his Tou-san really couldn't function without a morning coffee. After all these years the blond was sure that it was an addiction of some kind or another, not that Naruto blamed his father. The younger blond was also addicted to the wonderful life giving substance, but he loved it nowhere near the level Minato did. The elder blond took a single sip of the most wonderful creation on Kami's earth and focus came into his eyes, before his jaw almost dropped when he saw Naruto and Setsuna working in the same kitchen. His son had never shown any signs of acting like his old self and now here was cooking with his mother like nothing had ever happened. He opened his mouth to say hello, only for it to promptly shut when he saw Setsuna give him a withering look. The blond Hokage instantly understood that if was to interrupt his wife's first real bit of quality time with her son in three years he would die; and considering the look on Setsuna's face, she would do her best to make it painful.

Minato settled for sitting at the kitchen table very, very, quietly. Doing his absolute best not to attract attention to himself, he liked being a man thank you very much and he had no doubt in his mind that if he interrupted this moment his wife would remove his genitals with a rusty knife. Yes he, Namikaze-Uzumaki Minato, Yondaime Hokage of Konoha, the Kuroii Senko, was well and truly whipped in fact the man sometimes wondered who really wore the pants in Setsuna and his relationship, and every time he did Minato got a sinking feeling that it wasn't him.

Naruto gave an inaudible chuckle at the look of his father's face; that was the look when he contemplated that his Kaa-chan was more in control of the relationship than he was. That face was always a sight to see and it was always good for a laugh too. Naruto picked up the pot that contained his Laksa and placed it on the table, Naruto was never one for miso soup, and the blond far preferred the spicy Laksa soup for breakfast. Mayumi walked down the stairs not five minutes later and looked at her brother cooking like she had never seen it before. Before gaining a giant smile on her face at the pot of Laksa, Mayumi liked the spicy soup just as much as Naruto did. Naruto's chuckle was a little more audible this time, though only Setsuna managed to hear him. The blond ruffled his little sisters hair and she pouted at him, Mayumi was a little under four foot seven, with red hair that went down to the base of her neck, a pair of bangs framing her face much like their fathers. Green eyes that always seemed to shine with mischief, something Naruto quite dearly hoped he would not be dragged into, though it was most likely a vain hope. Her clothing consisted of a black shirt with a red Uzumaki spiral in the centre a pair of blue pants the Namikaze crest of a stylised upside down V on cuffs and a black hair band. Naruto went back to his cooking, while Setsuna began to serve it too the two currently seated Namikaze-Uzumaki.

Naruto was halfway through adding one last quick glaze to the chicken in the oven when he heard a yawn from the stairway. The blond turned around to see Akio staring at him like he had never seen him before. Not that it was overly surprising, Naruto hadn't eaten breakfast with the family in a year and it had been two years since he helped their mother cook anything. But the blond was letting his guard down if only for a little while today, thoughts of the red knight be dammed! Naruto gave his brother a quick look up and down, like his twin Akio had red hair that fell into his face, it was straight and not spikey like Naruto's own. It was kind of Ironic when Naruto considered it, out of the three siblings Naruto looked most like their father physically but took more after their mother when it came to personality and skills. While the twins both looked like their mother but acted more like their father, there was a small amount of irony there. The male red head was wearing a simple black shirt with the crest of the Namikaze over his heart and the Uzumaki swirl on his left shoulder. A pair of grey pants on his legs, Akio's purple eyes looked at Naruto in wonder. Naruto placed the beef salad on the table and tapped Akio on the chin. "Close your mouth unless you want to catch flies Otouto." The blond admonished his younger brother, who did indeed close his mouth but his eyes were still wide while looking at his older brother, Naruto ignored him and went back to his cooking.

The breakfast was rather quiet, the two twins in shock, Minato not wanting to destroy what could be the reconnection point with his son and Setsuna just enjoying the food. The Namikaze matriarch decided to speak up. "So then Sochi, how do you feel about graduation today?" Setsuna asked, Naruto's lips were set into a line, how did he feel about it?

"I feel pretty good about it Oka-sama, considering the requirements it shouldn't be a problem to pass. I'm more worried about the kind of people I'll get on whatever team I end up in, I just hope to Kami I don't get stuck with a fan girl." Naruto finished shivering, something Minato did as well, he had fan girls in the academy, and they really were the scariest thing in existence. Akio joined in on the collective shivering, the curse of the Namikaze and Uchiha men was shared, and the curse was called fan girls.

"Well that will depend on who graduates and where your skills fit in wont it Naru-chan." Setsuna replied, using her affectionate nickname for her eldest, Naruto sighed, he had long since given up trying to stop his mother calling him that.

"I guess that's true Oka-sama." Naruto stated while sounding defeated. Minato chuckled at the sound of his eldest, still Setsuna wasn't wrong. Even as Hokage he would place his son in a team with a fan girl if it was the best placement possible. Fortunately for Naruto there was already a placement in mind for him, if all the correct people passed of course. That being said it did contain a fan girl or two, however the good parts of that particular team outweighed the bad, at least Minato hoped they did.

Mayumi pouted at her older brother. "At least you get to leave already Onii-san, Akio and I still have to wait another year."

"Yes and thank you for reminding me of that Mayumi" sigh "another year of boring lectures, what the hell did I do to deserve this?" Akio questioned looking at the sky, Minato chuckled.

"We've all been there, Akio just try to bear with it." Minato advised, while his youngest son placed his head on the table and groaned.

"Can't you just let us graduate early? I mean you used to be able to do that." Akio asked in a pleading tone, Minato just chuckled again.

"Sorry we only do that during wartime, so yes Akio you are going to have to go to the academy for another year." Akio didn't bother giving a legible response and instead settled for groaning again, prompting Mayumi to laugh at her twin.

Naruto stood up from the table, his little bit of peace was over; it was time to go back to his plan. The blond placed washed his plate and looked back at the table and gave a quick wave. "I have to go get ready, see you later Imouto, Otouto, Tou-sama, Oka-sama." The family nodded, and Naruto walked back to his room, it was a rather Spartan affair but that was fine with the blond. He was like the knight in that respect, he didn't really need much. A king sized single bed, blue walls, a book case and an en suite was all he required. A cabinet in the corner housing his weapons and clothing, most of the weapons were stored in seals though.

The blond stepped into the shower and let the warm water wash over him, his muscles relaxed as the hot water ran over his body. His plan as a child had been flawed; horribly flawed, as in practically screaming that there was something wrong kind of flawed. Still it was too late to change it now, Naruto had made his bed and now he had to lie in it. The blond closed his eyes, doing things with his family, it was nice and, unfortunately, it would not be happening again for a long time. The plan was flawed but still workable, it's main goal of keeping them out of his personal war against the shadow's had been accomplished. Now he simply had to keep working with the plan even in its flawed state, when the last shadow was dead Naruto could go back to who he used to be. If the last shadow ever died that was, the blond pushed the thoughts aside and hopped out of the shower and grabbed a towel to dry his body.

Before grabbing his clothing, a black shirt made up of mesh fibres, matching black pants with a pair of kunai and shuriken holders on each leg. Boots adorned his feet in place of ninja sandals, ever since a shadow had almost cut the front half of one of his feet off Naruto had stopped wearing the sandals. The blond pulled out his jacket, the piece of clothing that extended down to the back of his knees, the jacket itself a vibrant red. The blond shrugged on the jacket and walked over to the wardrobe and picked out six scrolls and placed them into his pockets before belting on a pair of wakizashi's, leaving the two short swords to dangle around his hips. Naruto looked at himself in the mirror and his breath caught in his throat. He looked like the red knight, he still lacked the tanned complexion and the white hair, but other than that he looked like the knight. Naruto brought his breathing under control and tried to dismiss the subject from his mind, his attempt didn't really do much.

The blond looked at the clock, eight am, might as well leave now, after all Naruto had to be at the academy at eight thirty. Besides if he waited much longer Mayumi and Akio would be ready to go, Naruto wanted to leave before that. He couldn't risk anymore breaks in his mask than he had already. The blond walked through the kitchen and dining room and noticed that Minato was no longer there, 'he must have left already' Naruto thought. It was the curse of the Hokage's really, leave early and come home late, due to one thing, paperwork. Naruto actually held the secret to defeating that greatest of foes but had never told his father. The blond was saving it for a day that he needed to extort something out of his father badly; Naruto was willing to bet that the secret to defeating paperwork was worth a lot to his father, he wasn't wrong.

The blond walked to the front door, where he was stopped by his mother, Setsuna smiled down at her eldest before wrapping him in a hug. Naruto returned it, before smiling at his mother and wishing her a good day before walking out of the compound. Setsuna smiled as her child walked off, he hadn't noticed the seal she placed on him that sunk into his skin before vanishing all together.

**XXX**

Naruto sat at the back of his class room trying, and failing, to remain inconspicuous. The blond was reading intermediate sealing volume three. Naruto had already made the choice to become a seal master, well not technically a master; no one living could make that claim. A seal master was someone who had mastered everything concerning Fuuinjutsu, considering the complexity and sheer size of the subject that was impossible. To be more exact the people called seal masters, were only masters of their own section of sealing as it were. As such though he was called a seal master his father should really be called a Jukukan-ido seal master as he was only really a master of Jukukan-ido seals. (Note Jukukan-ido= Time space movement) Naruto had a similar but different ambition, to become a Jukukan-tsuiho seal master. (Jukukan-tsuiho Time space displacement)

The difference between the two was simple, a Jukukan-ido seal user dealt with movement relative to the person or objects current time space. The end idea was the ability through the use of seals to change the location of the person or object, relative to its current space time. The most famous version of this would be his father's famed Hiraishin no Justsu. By utilising the seal formula and using it as a marker he could change his current location relative to his original space time, thus creating a teleportation technique, however teleportation was still movement and hence his father was a Jukukan-ido seal master.

A Jukukan-tsuiho seal master looked to displace either themselves or others relative to their original/current space time. In theory an adept user could displace even Jutsu, allowing the transfer of attacks to a separate space time linked to the user, in other words forcing the Jutsu into a pocket dimension. The theory also offered the idea that one may have even been able to actually turn the attack back on the attacker, if the seal master displaced the Jutsu's current space time correctly. Maybe even storing the Jutsu in the pocket dimension for later use, but that was all relative, nothing but some vague theories. What really interested Naruto was if Jukukan-tsuiho would allow him to displace himself in relative position to his original space time, if he could Naruto would be able to make himself intangible, allowing attacks to go straight through him, the real problem was how.

The blond shook his thoughts off, the abstract theories were for another time, and right now he had to focus on the book in front of him. One may wonder why someone who had grown up with Uzumaki's would only be on an intermediate level of sealing; there was a reason for that. Now normally the Uzumaki family as a whole were fairly laid back people, provided that you didn't piss them off, however the one thing that the Uzumaki's were strict about were the rate at which clan members learned Fuuinjutsu. No matter how skilled you were no Uzumaki would teach anyone, clan member or not, Fuuinjutsu to above intermediate level until age twelve. Simply because Fuuinjutsu at higher levels was not something that should be played around with unless you knew what you were doing, people younger than twelve simply couldn't be trusted with advanced Fuuinjutsu.

Fuuinjutsu itself was broken up into five levels.

First- Beginner

Second- Apprentice/intermediate

Third- Adept

Fourth- Expert, which tended to be the longest.

Five- Master

Naruto had hit a wall when it came to his study of Fuuinjutsu when he was eleven; unfortunately for the blond he was naturally refused more training in the art until he reached age twelve. That was in three more weeks, However Naruto had used this time to revise what he knew about Fuuinjutsu and polish what he did know to its finest. Still he wouldn't be able to start on his endeavour to become a Jukukan-tsuiho seal master until the Uzumaki side of his family agreed to train him. The blond looked up when he heard Iruka's voice, the Chunin instructor ambled into the room and Naruto sighed. 'Please not a lecture, please not a lecture' Naruto chanted in his head like some kind of holy mantra.

Unfortunately Kami was not in a good mood that day and decided to ignore Naruto's desperate praying. Iruka opened his mouth to begin his final lecture to his student's. Naruto's head hit his desk, 'oh fuck me.' Then the blond heard Iruka mention that the lecture would be on the governing mechanics of the village, from across the room he heard Kushina's head slam into her own desk. 'Fuck me sideways'

**XXX**

Fortunately the remainder of the day passed relatively quickly, Naruto was of the firm opinion at the end of the day that the Genin exam was a joke. The written test had been laughably easy; he had originally thought that he had been given an easier test because he was the Hokage's some or something. That idea died away when he peeked at his neighbours test and saw the same questions, seriously 'why was the Sandaime Hokage called the professor' when the hell was that ever going to come in handy in the field?

The Kunai and shuriken test was laughable, seriously? Ten kuani and ten shuriken and a passing grade were getting a five on each, what the hell!? No one in the class, with the possible exception of Kushina, knew just how tempted Naruto was to add chakra to the kuani when he threw it just to prove a point. Not elemental chakra, just ordinary chakra, though Naruto did put that down as a job for later, learning his elemental chakra nature.

The final exam the ninjutsu exam was the one Naurto found most laughable. All he had to do was perform the Henge no Jutsu, Kawarimi no jutsu and finally the Bunshin no Jutsu, though Naruto did go a step further on that account and also showed the Kage Bunshin. The look on Iruka's face when he saw that was priceless. Still it was a very simple test, after which they were all told to go home and get a good night's rest as they would need to come back the day after to pick up their team placements. Before both Iruka and Mizuki used the Shunshin to leave, Naruto made a mental note to learn how to do that, it looked really handy.

**XXX**

Naruto yawned as he woke, first full night's sleep he had in and well honestly Naruto didn't know how long it had been since he had a full night's sleep. He was normally woken by memories of the red knight, the feeling of a shadow or nightmares; it was rare for him to get a full night's sleep. The blond rolled over and looked at the clock, five am, time to get up. The blond pulled himself out of bed, yesterday he had indulged himself by being with his family, today he went back to the plan. Naruto didn't bother going down stairs and instead opted simply to jump out his own window and proceeded to the most secluded training ground he had been able to find. Not noticing the red blur that followed him from behind.

It didn't take Naruto very long to reach training ground twenty nine, it was everything Naruto could want, secluded, almost never used, and consequently very few people knew it even existed. Though if anyone ever used their heads it would have been obvious that it did, after all why would the training grounds skip number twenty nine? It wasn't like the village had been attacked by a giant fox with nine tails that caused the village massive damage. Naruto shivered he could see that now. The fox would attack and loads of people would die, the damned thing would be sealed inside him creating a human weapon and both his mother and father would die and he would be left and orphan who then was hated by the village. Then eventually a group of weird people would try to abduct him for some obscure reason that would probably not even really make sense if you thought about it and then…., Naruto slapped himself, wow what the hell brought that on? He really needed to get laid, even the red knight seemed more mellow after that.

The blond shook his head, before holding his hands out. Once again his hands grasped the hilts of the weapons that had yet to exist, the hammer came down and Naruto could feel his prana surge in his circuits. "Trace on" The blond declared, the white and black swords materialised in his hands and Naruto took his stance. The dance began slowly, Kanshou dipped and Bakuya rose, Bakuya attacked and Kanshou defended. The dance became faster and faster until Naruto found himself doing tree jumping and water walking while performing his attacks. The blond stopped his arms almost shaking with exhaustion; Naruto took a deep breath in and saturated his lungs with air. "Trace on" he intoned and felt prana flood his body, reinforcing it as well as he could. Naruto had a feeling he was nowhere near his full capabilities when it came to self-reinforcement but he would have to take it slowly. If he pushed his body too far to fast his magic would backfire on him and likely destroy whatever body part Naruto was trying to strengthen.

The blond took his stance again, still hanging off the side of a tree and the dance of steel began anew. This time Naruto was moving even faster, the blond had discovered quite some time ago that he could use prana and chakra together. Using reinforcement made this even better as there was a set amount of chakra Naruto could channel to his limbs before he began to damage them, either via chakra overload or by striking something to hard. Reinforcement helped lift his normal barrier higher allowing him to hit even harder and fight even faster than normal, thanks to the extra chakra that could now be channelled to his limbs, and that wasn't even counting the power gain from the magic itself.

It was almost an hour later when Naruto stopped, and ran back to the Namikaze estate, well ran was a little too mundane, he wasn't running, Naruto was reinforced running. He entered the house the same way he exited, through the window.

Setsuna walked in through the front door, so that was where her son went every morning, interesting.

The blond hopped out of the shower and placed on his black and red clothes. Naruto took a quick look at the clock, seven forty, he had time. The blond sat in the centre of the room and calmed his breathing. "Trace on" Naruto pushed his focus on projecting the image in his head, a simple butter knife. He felt the knife drop into his hand, twenty seconds, getting faster. Now it was time to see if he could apply alteration to the knife. Naruto had always been wary about playing around with the abilities he had been granted. He had been able to instinctively project or trace Kanshou and Bakuya and access his prana reserves, which had been enough for him. But with those attacks getting more frequent Naruto decided to experiment a little and try to find his magic's limit. He applied the changes he wished to the butter knife, the blade had changed and become serrated; Naruto tested the edge with his finger. Definitely sharp, the blond pulled his arm back and applied alteration to the knife again, making the blade weighted for throwing, before hurling it at the wall facing him. The projected and altered butter knife sunk into the wall up to its handle. Okay so he could apply alteration to projected objects Naruto knew that now. But he would have to work his way up. The next step would be to alter something larger than a butter knife and slowly work his way up to Kanshou and Bakuya, if those two blades could even be altered.

Naruto looked at the clock again, eight ten, he needed to get going. Naruto jumped out of his window, and allowed the knife to be destroyed as he cut the flow of Od to the weapon. He felt it break apart much like Kanshou and Bakuya, it seemed that may be a constant, his blades would always be crushed once he stopped channelling his Od to them. That was an interesting piece of information; Naruto filed it away to be tested more at a later date, what would happen if he charged a weapon with Od instead of simply letting it flow, would the weapon hold up longer or would something else happen.

Naruto shelved his train of thought concerning his experiments with projection, right now he needed to focus. Naruto could see the academy coming into view, he looked down from his roof top perch and saw Akio and Mayumi walking together, Naruto sighed to himself. Before turning back to the academy and continuing his roof top run, he had to stay away that was the best way to keep them uninvolved, no matter how bad the plan was. The fact of the matter was that even though it was a shitty plan it was far too late to change it now, or at least that was what Naruto kept telling himself, for the last year.

Naruto looked at his class room; he wasn't going to make it in time if he went the normal way. "Trace on" prana surged through his circuits, reinforcing his bones and leg muscles allowing the blond to pump even more chakra through his legs. Naruto took a running jump from the edge of the building and sailed through his class room window, making many people gape at him. "Trace off" Naruto muttered, cutting the flow of chakra and prana to his legs.

Iruka took one look at the blond and sighed, "Take your seat Naruto." The tanned academy teacher turned back to the class as the eldest child of the Hokage took his seat. "Now then as I was saying before I was interrupted" Iruka threw a quick glare at Naruto; this wasn't the first time the blond had interrupted his class by coming in through the window. "Today will be your team assignments, unlike previous years we will be trying something a little different this year. As most of you know Genin teams are composed of one Jonin sensei and three Genin level ninja, however most Chunin level operations consist of six or more ninja working together. As such this year you will be separated into joint cells, joint cells will consist of two ordinary teams of Genin and with three Jonin-sensei's. The hope is that by working in larger cells you all become more used to the kind of teams you will be working with while Chunin." Iruka finished looking around the class.

Naruto sighed and looked around the room, 'okay, who have we got then?' The blond could see, Kushina, Sasuke, Kiba, Hana, Sakura, Ino, Choji, Shikamaru, Maya, Hinata and Shino. Looked like all the clan heirs had made it, not that it surprised Naruto, clan heirs had an edge when it came to passing the graduation exam. The blond looked at Iruka who had begun speaking again.

"Now then the joint cells are as follows. Cell one, Akimichi Choji , Haruno Sakura, Nara Shikamaru, Uchiha Sasuke," Iruka was cut off by the fan girl squeal that came out of Sakura's mouth. "Uzumkai Kushina and finally Namikaze-Uzumaki Naruto." Iruka finished, Naruto thought about his team mates for a second. Okay Sakura, despite being a fan girl, had good chakra control and could become either a good medic ninja or Genjutsu specialist. Sasuke would be the team's Ninjutsu specialist, Shikamaru was the strangest, Nara's were always good like that, Choji would be the Taijutsu specialist and finally Kushina and he would be the Kenjutsu specialists of the team. As well as the teams seal users, when he considered it the team was most likely a first response team, a Jack of all trades master of most idea, not bad. "Your Jonin Sensei's will be Hatake Kakashi,Uzuki Yūgao and Sarutobi Asuma" Iruka finished. Naruto considered it; it wasn't hard to pick out who would do what. Kakashi was the Ninjutsu and seal user, Uzuki Yugao would be the Kenjutsu and assassination master and finally Sarutobi Asuma would be their Taijutsu and chakra and elemental manipulation teacher.

"The next cell will consist of Aburame Shino, Hyuga Hinata, Inuzuka Kiba, Inuzuka Hana, Natsume Maya and Yamanaka Ino" Iruka called, Naruto didn't bother analysing the team to deeply but he could tell they were a recon and ambush team, maybe with a side job in interrogation. "Sensei's will be Yūhi Kurenai, Mitarashi Anko", Naruto had to supress a shudder, who's bright idea was it to let Anko near children? "And Gekkō Hayate" Naruto could see the usefulness of that setup, before tuned Iruka out and concentrated on what else he might be able to do using prana.

It was around half an hour later when he was brought out of his quiet contemplation by the door opening revealing Uzuki Yugao Sarutobi Asuma and a tied up Hatake Kakashi, Naruto was actually quite surprised that they managed to get Kakashi. Asuma looked around the room. "Joint cell one consisting of Akimichi Choji , Haruno Sakura, Nara Shikamaru, Uchiha Sasuke, Uzumkai Kushina and Namikaze-Uzumaki Naruto. You're with us meet us on the roof in ten." Asuma finished before he and the other two Jonin, Kakashi still tied up, vanished in a Shunshin. Naruto sighed; he really had to learn how to do that, it just looked so handy. The blond pushed his chair in and walked out the door, the other five members of cell one following behind.

Reaching the roof didn't take long and Naruto noted that Kakashi had been removed from his bindings. Or he got free, Naruto wasn't really sure. "Okay then" Asuma started, "state your name's likes, dislikes, hobbies and dreams." Asuma asked them, Sakura's hand went up and Asuma nodded at the pinkette.

"Would you mind going first sensei?" The pinkette questioned, Naruto fought the urge to face palm, it was something he had learned after being around Kushina for years. No matter how much someone's actions irritate or annoy you never give them the satisfaction of seeing you face palm. The blond found it to be a fairly good lesson too.

Asuma nodded. "Okay then, my name is Sarutobi Asuma, my likes include cigarettes, Hi no Kuni and Shogi. My dislikes are arrogance, working too hard and traitors. My hobby is playing Shogi and my dream for the future is to have a family with someone that I love." Asuma finished, before turning to Yugao and nodding.

The purple haired woman took her cue and nodded to her students. "My name is Uzuki Yugao my likes include my boyfriend, swords and the art of Kenjutsu" both Naruto and Kushina couldn't help but smile at that. "My dislikes are Orochimaru, Iwa and war. My hobby is moon watching and my dream is to learn all of the Kenjutsu styles of the Uzumaki clan." Yugao finished causing Sakura to look at her strangely.

"Ah, forgive me for interrupting Uzuki-sensei but aren't the Uzumaki Kenjutsu techniques family secrets? How exactly do you intend to learn them?" Sakura asked, both Naruto and Kushina sighed, one would have thought the answer would have been obvious from her last name.

Yugao nodded to Sakura. "The Kenjutsu techniques of the Uzumaki are clan secrets that much is true, however the Uzuki clan are an off shoot of the Uzumaki. As such I can learn the techniques also, does that answer your question Sakura?" Yugao asked, the pinkette nodded, Yugao looked at Kakashi who took his cue.

"My name is Hatake Kakashi, my likes are well I don't really feel like telling you. My dislikes, I don't feel like tell you that either, I never really thought about my dream and as for hobbies well I have lots of hobbies." Kakashi finished eye smiling, Naruto sighed before speaking up.

"Your name is Hatake Kakashi, you're likes are reading your porn, called Icha Icha Paradise. Dislikes are anything or anyone that tries to take you away from your porn. Hobbies are reading your porn in broad daylight and public places. And your dreams for the future are to star in one of the Icha Icha books and an Icha Icha movie if one ever comes out." Naruto smirked as he saw Kakashi's eye twitch. While the other two Jonin stifled their laughter and Kushina held her hands on her sides trying to stay upright because she was laughing too hard.

Kakashi's eye twitched again, he like everyone else in Konoha had eventually been closed off by Naruto and still it seemed that his surrogate Otouto remembered everything that he had 'accidentally' overheard. Though Kakashi didn't buy that Naruto accidentally hearing things was really an accident, he was seemingly always in the right place at the right time to hear things he simply shouldn't know. Far more often than should be possible if it really was an accident, still Kakashi didn't have any proof. "Well then since you're so eager why don't you go next Goldilocks?" Naruto smiled internally that was Naruto 45 Kakashi 17.

"That's fine by me Cyclops" Naruto said flippantly, outwardly smirking when he saw the tick mark above Kakashi's visible eye and updated the score to read Naruto 46. "My name is Namikaze-Uzumaki Naruto, my likes are swords, Konoha and moonlight. My dislikes are nightmares, shadows and senseless killing. I don't really have a hobby or a dream." Naruto finished nodding to Kushina who looked at him with more perception than he would like when he mentioned shadows.

"My name is Uzumaki Kushina, my likes include swords, Fuuinjutsu, salt ramen and the Uzumaki clan. My dislikes include Kumo, Iwa and bitter things like coffee. My hobbies include pulling pranks and improving my Kenjutsu. My dream is to finally get the blond haired dumbass next to me to tell me what the hell has been bothering him for the last three years." Kushina stated, before giving Naruto a withering look. The blond did his best to ignore both the look and her statement.

The three sensei nodded, while Kakashi gave Naruto a calculating look, one the blond didn't like. Sasuke chose to speak next. "My name is Uchiha Sasuke, I like my clan and my family, and my dislikes are fan girls and natto. My hobby is training and my dream is to surpass Uchiha Itachi." Sasuke finished before nodding to Shikamaru who just looked at the clouds and sighed.

"Nara Shikamaru, I like watching the clouds and napping, I dislike troublesome people and actions. My hobbies are watching clouds and taking naps and my dream is to be an average ninja and marry a woman who is neither too pretty nor too ugly and have two kids first a girl and then a boy before retiring and then dying, hopefully before my wife." Naruto had to stop his eye from twitching, typical bloody Nara.

"My name is Haruno Sakura, my likes are" She looked at Sasuke. "My dreams are" She looked at Sasuke again. "My hobbies" she looked at Sasuke a third time and squealed. Naruto sighed, a bloody fan girl, that was perfect, that was just fucking perfect.

"And your dislikes?" Yugao asked, fearing the answer somewhat.

Kushina and Naruto saw Sakura take in a deep breath and slammed their hands over their own ears, not a second too soon. "INO-BUTA AND KUSHINA-BAKA!" Sakura yelled and Naruto sighed, something's never changed; it seemed that Sakura was still convinced that every woman in the world was after Sasuke. Yugao gave a nod while holding in a sigh; she already knew that Sakura was going to be a lot of work. Yugao gestured to Choji, who was the last Genin.

"Hi, my name is Akimichi Choji my likes are my friends and food. My dislikes, I don't really have any of those." Naruto recited the word fat in his head but he was neither brave nor crazy enough to say it out loud. "My hobby is cloud watching with Shikamaru and as for a dream well to be the best ninja I can be I guess." Choji finished, Naruto had to hold in a smile, Choji was a really genuine guy and easy to get along with to, kind of like Lee, only without eye searing green spandex.

Kakashi eye smiled at the Genin "Well then meet us tomorrow at training ground twenty nine at six am for your real Genin test okay." Before he used a Shunshin to escape going to Kami only knew where, though Naruto was willing to bet that he was off to read Icha Icha, he would have won that bet too.

The escaping Cyclops completely missed the scream of "WHAT" that came from the mouths of four out of the six Genin, Naruto didn't yell because he thought something like this might happen and Shikamaru was too lazy to yell.

Asuma quietly cursed Kakashi for running off and leaving him and Yugao to deal with the four irate Genin. "Yes there is another Genin test; the one in the academy is only to see if you have the ability to become Genin. The test administered by the Jonin sensei is to see if you have the right to become Genin, and by the way turn up at seven or there about, it will probably take us an hour or so to find Kakashi so coming at six would be redundant. Also some advice you may want to skip breakfast because you'll probably throw it up." Asuma finished before using his own Shunshin and disappearing, Yugao hot on his heels.

Naruto jumped of the side of the building, Kushina following close behind. The Uzumaki and Namikaze clan compounds were right next to each other after all. Naruto quickly altered his course for training ground twenty nine, he still had some time before he had to head home, Kushina kept running towards the Uzumaki compound but did throw a quick look Naruto's way.

Naruto dropped onto the grass and looked to the sky, 'and congratulations to you' he thought sarcastically. 'Your family might be in even more danger because you chose to indulge yourself and your best friend is worried about you and maybe hates you, good job Naruto.' The blond stood up and sighed. "Well at least being on the team can't get any worse." The blond lamented before a medium sized rock hit him in the head. The blond looked around but found no one before looking at the rock and noticing a note tied to it. He picked it up and pulled the note off, Naruto's eye brows rose before he looked around, and then looked at the note again. The note was very quick and to the point.

_Dear Namikaze-Uzumaki Naruo_

_Challenge accepted_

_From the desk of __Kischur Zelretch Schweinorg_

Naruto looked to the sky, why the hell was he feeling the need to curse the root, whatever the hell that was. The blond shook his head before sitting cross legged; it was time to find out just how far he could alter a projected weapon. "Trace on"

**XXX**

The blond Namikaze-Uzumaki yawned as he walked onto training ground twenty nine. This was his home ground, hopefully that gave him and edge. He had skipped his training that morning, no point in exhausting himself before an exam that might involve combat. The blond leaned against a tree; he could already see the other five Genin around the training field. It didn't take Asuma and Yugao long to arrive, carrying a still tied up Kakashi. Naruto sighed upon seeing his still tied up surrogate brother, 'maybe he should try actually showing up on time I mean how hard could it be?' Naruto asked himself.

The six Genin jogged over to their Jonin sensei, Kakashi just managing to free himself from the ropes, before taking eye smiling. "Now then how about we get down to business?" The silver haired Jonin asked, Asuma sighed. Only Kakashi could pull something like that.

"Okay today's Genin test is simple, you have exactly three hours in this time frame you must find, catch and then subdue all three of us. Any and all forms off attack are okay, ready? GO!" Asuma yelled, three of the Genin sprinted away from the Jonin and hid the other three however. "Uh guy's? Tests started you can go and hide now." Asuma said to the three Genin, Naruto, Kushina and Shikamaru shrugged. Yugao went to say something before ripping her katana out of its scabbard half a second before a pair of wakizashi's should have separated her head from her shoulders.

Naruto grimaced that his surprise attack had been stopped, before twisting and disengaging with the kuniochi, a chain of pure chakra punching through where his head had been less than a second before. Naruto spun using the chain as a pivot and slashed at the former ANBU's eyes. Yugao's eyes widened at the attack and the purple haired ANBU parried the blow, Naruto pivoted again allowing a katana to pass him by harmlessly, but what was just a harmless stab to Naruto was an attack at Yugao's vitals. The purple haired ANBU back peddled to avoid Kushina's katana strike; Naruto used Kushina as a visual block and attacked Yugao's blind spot. The twin wakizashi's struck at the woman's vulnerable side and Yugao barely twisted out of the way. The moment she avoided Naruto's attack Kushina's own came at her in the form of a slash trying to take her eyes. Yugao ducked under the blow but was forced to jump back when Naruto's wakizashi's tried to open new holes in both her throat and her lungs.

Naruto and Kushina smiled as Yugao landed, the purple haired former ANBU found she could no longer move. "Kagemane no Jutsu success." Shikamaru said from his position behind the purple haired ANBU. "You lose Yugao-sensei now how about giving up and not making this too troublesome?" Shikamaru asked.

Yugao pretended to think about it. "Nope" the Jonin said before disappearing in a puff of somke, Naruto cursed, thrice damned Kage Bunshin.

Naruto spun, shit they'd forgotten about the other sensei's. Only to find the clearing empty, "wow they totally bailed" Naruto said a trace of awe in his voice while both Shikamaru and Kushina nodded.

Shikamaru looked at the two other Genin. "Are you two willing to work with me here?" The pineapple haired boy asked, both Kushina and Naruto nodded. "Okay then to start with we're going to need to find Choji then the others, they are here for a reason after all." The three Genin nodded to each other and dashed off into the forest.

**XXX**

Naruto, Choji, Kushina and Shikamaru stood next to each other; it had been almost an hour since the test started. Sakura and Sasuke had refused to work with the four, Sakura because she thought she only needed Sasuke and Sasuke, well they weren't really sure why he refused, but it was probably a pride thing. Naruto sighed and looked at Shikamaru, "so what's the plan oh fearless leader?" The blond asked, Shikamaru sighed.

"Well it's not everyone but it's what we've got, troublesome." Shikamaru stated, before sighing. "The original plan was to take all three of the Jonin at the same time and hopefully keep them off guard but that would require all six of us and since there's only four that plans out."

"So we have to go about things differently huh, well that's fine. You know what they say after all Shikamaru, no plan survives contact with the enemy." Naruto stated, Shikamaru nodded and then sighed.

"The real problem is going to be keeping all three of them subdued" Kushina stated with Choju nodding empathetically.

Shikamaru sighed. "That would be true if that was actually what we needed to do." Shikamaru admitted, Naruto sighed, so the Nara had figured it out. Not really that surprising, Naruto always had a theory that a Nara's intelligence was directly proportional to his laziness, and Shikamaru was one of the laziest. "Think about it six Genin no matter how skilled can't take down three veteran jonin, let alone subdue them. So the real goal has to be something else and what does Konoha value above all else? It values teamwork, so logically this test was to see if we could all work together." Shikamaru finished, Choji and Kushina nodded Naruto just sighed. "You knew that as well didn't you Naruto." It was a statement not a question, Naruto nodded.

"I did" the blond admitted, ignoring the look of annoyance on Kushina's face. "I also knew that the chance of Sasuke working with us was almost zero and without Sasuke we weren't going to get Sakura either. So I was hoping that we could do well enough on fighting the Jonin they would pass the rest of us on combat merit or maybe form those of us that passed into a normal team." The blond finished sighing, Shikamaru looked at him for a second.

"So you saw how hopeless it looked and decided to cut your losses?" The Nara asked, Naruto nodded, Shikamaru smirked, and decided he would have to play Shogi against the blond one day. The Nara was sure it would be an interesting game, at the very least.

"Alright then new plan" Shikamaru stated. "We all know that we have no chance of getting either Sasuke or Sakura to work with us so Naruto's hope of being passed on combat merit is really our only chance." Shikamaru stated, Kushina cocked her head to the side.

"Do you think that Sasuke and Sakura would work with us if we explained the situation to them?" Kushina asked; Shikamaru shook his head.

"I doubt it; Sasuke is the kind of guy that believes that he can do anything alone. Not only that but he might think that we are trying to trick him into working with us. So the chance of getting Sasuke to work with us is near zero and without Sasuke….." Shikamaru let himself trail off and Choji took over for his friend.

"We can't get Sakura since she wouldn't work with us without him. Partially because she thinks Kushina is a rival for Sasuke's heart and partially because she thinks the three of us are trying to show Sasuke up." Choji finished, Naruto nodded, that was the way it would end too, the blond was sure of it. Kushina nodded begrudgingly and Shikamaru took it as his cue to start explaining his new plan.

"Okay combat merit is our last hope so we better do this right, to start with we're going to need some explosive tags and ninja wire does anyone have some." Shikamaru asked, Naruto, Kushina and Choji nodded, and Shikamaru let out a relieved breath, that was good. "Okay then how many explosive tags and how much ninja wire?"

"I've got about fifty tags and forty meters of wire" Naruto replied, before looking at Kushina.

The red head took her cue from her old friend; yes she did still consider him a friend. She just wished she knew what the hell was wrong and that pissed her off, she was his friend dammit, his best friend, why the hell couldn't Naruto trust her? "One hundred tag's fifty meters of wire" Kushina responded, the red head always carried more tags with her than most thanks to her less than stellar ability with ninjutsu.

"Forty tags, sixty wire." Choji stated looking at his old friend; Shikamaru sighed and looked to the sky.

"Okay here's the plan" Shikamaru started.

**XXX**

Naruto stood at the centre of a clearing, his breathing even. The blond had volunteered to be the bait, besides he had one thing the others didn't. Naruto could feel the presence approaching him from behind, "trace on" Naruto breathed out slowly at the feeling of prana flowing through his circuits. He reinforced his entire body as well as he could, hopefully his hidden ace would be enough. Naruto twisted avoiding a trench knife to the back of his head, the blond lashed out with his left wakizashi. Asuma pushed the blade out wide; the right blade came in close, Asuma's own blade deflected. The Jonin kicked out with his left leg, Naruto used it as a vault and pushed himself over the man's head, before hacking at him from above. Asuma's eyes widened as the attack came down before abruptly the attacks course changed as Naruto repositioned his wakizashi to stop the kunai that almost killed him.

Yugao landed lightly on the outskirts of the clearing, another kunai held tightly in her hand. Naruto grimaced as the two Jonin took up positions on either side of each other. The blond kicked off the ground and slashed at Asuma who leaned back to dodge, Naruto pivoted blocking the incoming strike from Yugao. Before swinging his left wakiziashi in a counter, Yugao ducked under the strike and Naruto ducked to avoid the attack from behind from Asuma. The blond Namikaze spun and slashed upwards with his right wakizashi, forcing Asuma to back up, Naruto jumped forward, ignoring Yugao and struck at Asuma again. The bearded Jonin forced the attack away with his trench knives. Yugao jumped as she almost found herself impaled by a chakra chain, Naruto leapt into the air and slashed at the purple haired former ANBU who blocked. The two landed in a weapon lock and Naruto twisted allowing the katana blade to pass him while Kushina made an attempt to give Yugao a hole in her lungs. Naruto pushed off the ground and stopped Asuma's attack from hitting Kushina before he twisted and allowed a chakra chain to attempt to blind their sensei. Naruto fell into a backwards roll and came up inside Yugao's guard before slashing at the woman, the former ANBU jumped back to regroup. Naruto spun catching Asuma's trench knives with his wakizashi's while Kushina retreated into the forest.

"Been left by your girlfriend Naruto?" Asuma asked, Naruto grunted, he knew the two weren't going all out, he would have been defeated a long time ago if that was the case but still this was dammed hard. The blond could feel his arms almost shaking with exhaustion; sweat was dripping down his face. Naruto allowed Asuma to break his guard and fell back to the ground, rolling over his own shoulder to come back into a ready stance. Both Asuma and Yugao in front of him, Naruto had been deliberately not using Jutsu. He didn't want to waste his chakra like that; he needed it more to enhance his own strikes. The blond tightened his grip on his wakizashi's and charged, the right blade stabbed forward, Asuma defended, Yugao attack the left blade defended, Naruto pivoted and slashed at Yugao's eyes who leaned back to avoid the blow, Naruto let the strength of his slash carry him through and then struck at Asuma's privets. The bearded sensei immediately guarded with his trench knives, before Naruto disengaged and pulled back, breathing heavy sweat pouring down his face. In comparison the two Jonin were barely breathing hard. Naruto almost sighed in relief when he saw Kakashi drop into the clearing, now he just had to finish it.

"Maa, maa" Kakashi said looking at Naruto. "You like you've been through hell Naruto." Naruto sighed, just one last push. The blond charged the white haired man, jumping into the air and coming down with a spinning slash at the top of the man's head. Kakashi blocked it lazily with a kunai; Naruto kicked off the man's forearm and pushed himself back to the middle of the clearing. Naruto stood visibly shaking with exhaustion, sweat pouring down his face; the three Jonin looked at each other before charging. Naruto smiled before disappearing, a log appearing in his place. The three Jonin's eyes went wide; someone else had used the Kawarimi to get the blond clear.

Shikamaru smiled at the stunned look on the Jonin's faces, the boy pulled his hands into the ram seal "katsu" and all hell broke loose. The ground around the three was torn apart by explosions, the wind actually making the lazy Nara shield his eye for fear of flying debris. Shikamaru looked back when the explosions died down; the clearing was now a smoking crater. Three smoking logs; and no signs of the three Jonin, all according to plan.

The three Jonin touched down in another part of the forest all three using the Kawarimi no Jutsu to get clear of the blast. As soon as their feet touched down the second trap was sprung, ninja wire went taunt around them, its razor sharp edges looking to cut them apart. All three moved weapons cutting the wire before it could cut them, setting off the third stage of the trap another lot of explosive tags ignited underneath the three, only a desperate Kawarimi saving them. The three Jonin landed now panting, not from exertion but rather surprise, their reprieve didn't last long. Chakra chains bursting from the earth and looking to ensnare the three, the Jonin's looked on in shock before jumping back, then paling. The trees they had just jumped into were littered with explosive tags. "Katsu!" came the joyful voice of Kushina while the three cursed another Kawarimi narrowly saving their lives, and dropping them straight into another trap.

The three landed, only to find Choji bearing down on them, his body converted into a rolling ball of death using his family's Nikudan Sensha. The three jumped avoiding the blow, only to see a smirking Naruto just finishing his hand seals. "Dodge this" the blond muttered "Fūton: Daitoppa!" Naruto screamed the attacks name despite his exhaustion, pushing the three Jonin back into the line of Choji's attack. Naruto saw three puffs of smoke. "NOW!" the blond screamed, and Shikamaru turned his attention to the crater. Just as the three Jonin landed.

"Katsu" The remaining explosive tags in the clearing went off, Shikamaru sighed, dear Kami he hoped that worked. His hope was quickly crushed when he saw all three sensei still standing with only minor burn marks.

Kushina dropped into the clearing, Choji and the still exhausted Naruto hot on her heels. Choji gave the blond a concerned look. "Naruto maybe you should stay back" the Akimichi heir suggested, Naruto snorted.

"Thanks for the concern Choji" Naruto said drawing his two wakizashi. "But I think I'll be staying right here, it just isn't in my nature to back down and let other fight my battles for me." The blond stated taking a loose stance as Shikamaru walked out of the forest to take his place beside them.

'Sure it's not in your nature to let others fight your battle you baka, but it is in your nature to push people away from you when they try to help you, baka.' Kushina thought, eyes trained on the Jonin in front of her. Normally she could ignore her friends attitude but still wanted to find out what the hell was wrong, but being on the same team as Naruto was probably going to make her beat the answer out of him sooner or later.

The four Genin prepared to rush the Jonin, right when the alarm went off, Naruto sank to the ground dear Kami he was tired, the blond just had to hope that they had done enough.

**XXX**

Naruto groaned, why the hell was he tied to a post? The rest of the team had been told they failed the Genin exam but they would get a second chance in an hour if they didn't feed Naruto while they all had lunch. Dammit he was exhausted and the lack of food was only going to make things worse, the blond shut his eyes, he would try to catch some shut eye hopefully that would help.

The blond was woken by a pair of chopsticks trying to get some food into his mouth. Naruto cracked open his eyes, Kushina looked at him in an annoyed manner. "Are you going to eat or not?" The red head asked, Naruto looked at the food, salt ramen, Kushina's favourite. So she was still willing to share this with him even after almost three years of giving her the cold shoulder, Kami dammit his plan sucked. It seemed like Kushina still thought of him as a friend though, Naruto gratefully ate the piece of chicken on the chopsticks. Completely ignoring Sakura's shrieks of how Kushina was going to get them all disqualified. That was harder than it sounded; Naruto looked up when he heard three thumps. Asuma, Yugao and Kakshi and they all looked pissed as hell.

Before all three of them smiled; "You pass" the three Jonin declared, Kushina hugged him. Naruto sighed before hugging the girl back; revealing that he had already cut the ropes it had been a long, long time since he had allowed himself physical contact with another person, a voice in the back of his mind told him the knight would be disappointed in him. That just allowing himself to get closer to Kushina again was putting her in danger, Naruto drowned the voice out, he wasn't the knight.

**Wrought Iron Hero- Chapter one end**

For anyone who has anything to say about doing chicken teriyaki in the oven, don't knock it until you've tried it. Seriously next time you have some spare time cook some chicken breasts in the oven using teriyaki sauce as a glaze, it tastes delicious.

For anyone who does not know Zelretch he's a vampire, a dead apostle ancestor to be exact (look that up if you don't know what it is Type Moon Wiki is your friend), that has the ability to travel the multiverse and also has one fucked up sense of humour if rumour is to be believed. Hell in one fanfiction the mage's association has a party when the man LEAVES, though also according to said fanfiction he came back once just to get in on the party. Considering what we know about Zelretch I can actually believe that.


	3. Chapter 3

**Wrought Iron Hero**

**Chapter Three: Caladbolg**

Author note-

Hello and welcome to chapter three, this was originally to be a chapter of Sharingan no Kami but I just couldn't stop thinking about this story.

Alrighty then now on to business, one thing I would like to mention is that it is Sasuke is the heir to the Uchiha not Itachi, this is by Itachi's own choice. As he was the one to kill their father and Itachi feels that he couldn't be a good clan head with the blood of his own people on his hands so he deffered the clan heir title to Sasuke.

Also go and read fate stay night it will explain why I referenced King Arthur as her.

Other than that thank Zimbolical for being a wonderful BETA reader and now on with the show.

"Talking"

'Thinking'

"**Boss summon talking"**

"**Jutsu/Attacks when being used not just talked about"**

Story Start-

_Fire roared around him, the black haired man ran, someone, someone, had to be alive in this hell, if he could just save one person maybe, just maybe, he would be able to redeem his worthless soul. But did he even deserve redemption after all he had done, all the deaths, all the lies, he made it his duty to save as many people as possible, was he wrong, this hell told him his answer, he was wrong. Then he saw it, even as the fire around him was doused by the falling rain, as if god himself was crying at the senseless loss of life, not that the black haired man believed in god, he had seen far too much to believe. But still he saw it, the figure of a small boy, hair stained from the falling ash around him, eyes unfocused. Unless he did something the boy was going to die. No, no, he would not allow that, this destruction was his fault. He would save at least one person here!_

_He pulled it out from beneath his coat, a scabbard, golden inlaid with blue enamel, script in a tongue that was meant for no human in its centre. Avalon, the ever distant utopia, the paradise that the king is said to go to after death, a conceptual weapon that bequeaths a limited form of immortality to the user. By creating it, it gives the user almost instantaneous regeneration, enough so that King Arthur was called immortal while the scabbard was in her possession. It was a gift to the one true king of Britain by the Fae, to show their support and hope for a peaceful future for humanity. One that, unfortunately, never had came to pass. He was unsure if it would work, but he had to at least try to save the boy, it was his duty. The sheath of the legendary blade devolved into particles and were absorbed into the boy's body, the man could only hope now, he could only pray that the scabbard would heal the boy, he had failed Iri, he had failed his daughter Iliya, he wasn't sure if he could take it if he failed the boy as well._

_The boy's eyes opened and the dream ended._

**XXX**

The red head groaned as she woke, it was another one of those dreams again. They had started around half a year ago and always featured the man, though the continence of them were constantly changing. Occasionally he was fighting using weapons she had never seen before, other times he was strategizing. Most of his plans went off with lethal precision. It was actually the reason that she was so good at strategy in the academy, she simply copied the man's planning process, though she was less brutal in her plans, the red head groaned again, this time she had been left with a name, normally her dreams didn't have much talking, just impressions and the occasional ability, but this time she had been left with a name. The red head looked at herself in the mirror, her long hair falling around her was ruffled by sleep, "Emiya" Kushina said to herself, "Emiya Kiritsugu" the red head cocked her head to the side and looked in the mirror with confusion, "Magus Killer?"

**XXX**

_The knight grit his teeth as he cut down another of the dead, black and white Yin and Yang swords flashing in the gloom, where was he, where was the bastard that started all this. He would kill that thrice be damned dead apostle, he would make that abomination pay for what it had done, he already knew that Arcueid and Shiki were already taking care of the escapees and other abominations that were looking to leave the town, Rin was keeping his back clear through use of powerful bounded fields and high class elemental magic, he just knew he would be buying her new jewels later. Still if that was the price of taking down this monster then so be it, hell he could probably have the church reimburse him considering he was doing this as an outsourced contract for them. His ear piece crackled and came to life as the knight side stepped another of the dead before Bakuya flashed and took its head from its shoulders. "Go ahead" he growled severing another's arm and dancing away before it could grab him, before following up with a slash to the head splitting the dead's skull vertically._

"_Good you're still alive" the voice on the other end joked._

"_Not the time Waver" the knight hissed ducking a strike from one of the dead before beheading it and kicking the falling corpse into a group of the approaching horde. _

"_Right, right, look I know where the target is going to be, you want to kill it you're going to need to be somewhere high" the man named Waver said, the knight sighed in frustration._

"_How high are we talking?"_

"_At the top of the bell tower should do it" Waver replied, the knight made a quick skim of the village, a bell tower, it was close by him too, that was a good thing._

"_How long do I have?" the knight asked as he sprinted to the side of a house and jumped, landing lightly on the roof before beginning his reckless run. He heard a grumble on the other end of the ear piece._

"_About five minutes" Waver responded. The knight sighed and looked at the bell tower._

"_Time to spare" he increased his speed, dodging the dead that managed to make it to the roof tops, the knight kicked off the roof he was on and grabbed the wall of the bell tower and began hauling himself up, hand over hand, his fingers bled, he didn't care, his arms felt like lead, he didn't care. The knight pulled himself to the roof of the tower and looked out over the town, he could see fires raging, this place was dead, it's inhabitants drained dry, all that was left was the thralls of the dead apostle, the knight grimaced, "Waver which direction?" he asked looking over the destroyed town._

"_Hmm, according to the spell he should be trying to run away in a north by north west direction" the voice over the radio stated, the knight grimaced and turned to the direction._

_His hand came out and gripped something that had yet to exist. "Trace on" the knight stated, a black bow entering the word to settle in the knights hands. "What kind of defensive armament are we looking at Waver?" the knight asked, and heard a grumble on the other end of the line._

"_Oh shit" was heard on the other end, accompanied by a tone of awe. "It worse than we thought, a seven layer bounded field, designed to stop anything from so much as touching the caster and it gets worse, it's supported by high ancient magecraft, you might want to put a little more umph (yes it is a word, look it up it means spirited vigour) in this attack then you were planning on." Waver stated, the knight grunted his assent._

_The knight looked down and saw the running figure, he already knew what it was, that thing stopped being human a long time ago. It needed to die, and it was going to die here and now. The knight exhaled and placed his fingers on the bow string._

_~ I Am The Bone Of My Sword ~_

_Naruto didn't so much hear the words as he felt them, it was a promise one engraved into the knights soul, and, into Naruto's own soul._

_The string was pulled back, a demonic sword is in place on the bow string, it was a strange thing, a spiral blade, just looking at it made Naruto's brain burn, it was something that was barely inside his understanding even now, but somehow he managed to copy it. He would not use it though, not for awhile anyway, the demonic sword still seemed to be too much for him, at least right now. The knight pulled the demonic arrow back, Naruto could no longer call it a sword, if it was shot from a bow then it didn't matter what it was supposed to be originally, once it was on that bow, it became an arrow._

_The sword's shape changed, becoming sleeker and more suited to be on the bow, then it changed, the sword glowed as it crackled with power. It became fragile, it became dangerous, it became broken._

_The knight exhaled his eyes trained on his target, __**"Caladbolg!" **__the demonic arrow lanced across the sky at the knights target, space twisting around it, the demonic arrow struck, and the world exploded in white._

**XXX**

Naruto groaned as he woke, eyes wide, his mind was still burning. That demonic sword, Caladbolg, he couldn't get it out of his mind. It was so powerful, so perfect, and yet at the same time it was so wrong, as if it had been twisted from its original purpose, Naruto already knew he wouldn't be able to use Caladbolg effectively in battle. He had just enough prana to trace the sword, but he would be spent if he tried to wield it, the blade was simply too much for him at the moment. But if he refined his magic circuits more then he should be able to use the blade, it would just take him time to do that. It was proven it was possible after all. The knight had been the one to prove it, to prove Waver's theories that a mage's power could be increased through effort, experience and knowledge rather than through a mage's heir.

It wasn't that Naruto could gain more magic circuits, but rather he could learn to utilise them more efficiently. As he became more experienced with his tracing his circuits slowly but surely grew more accustomed to it, making them more efficient at utilising his prana to achieve his goal. Then the more his magic was used the more prana his circuits were capable of holding as they grew more and more used to the strain and expanded. Knowing that made Naruto quite glad, it meant he wouldn't be stuck at the same level forever. His power would grow as he kept using it and gained more experience with it. That was something that greatly revealed the blond, at the moment he could only trace Kanshou and Bakuya a grand total of three times before he was spent and risked burning himself out through prana overload, if it just didn't kill him outright.

The blond looked to the sky, despite finding his ceiling in the way, and sighed. His magic, he still barely understood it, wait magic? Why did that sound wrong, he had been using the term for such a long time, why would it sound wrong now? A voice echoed in the back of his head, it was a girls, as sweet as honey but with a definite tone of fire and drive to it, the image he got mentally was of a black haired girl with blue-green eyes a red blouse and black skirt.

"_Magic, True Magic or Sorcery is a class of mystery that surpasses magecraft and all current sciences — absolutely unattainable through the mere expenditure of time and resources. It is considered the ultimate accomplishment of a magus, and only within the grasp of those who have accessed the swirl of the root, don't forget that you blockhead. What you and I do is called Magecraft, Magecraft is the ability to reproduce what cannot be scientifically realised regardless of time and funds, remember that okay!?"_

The voice and his inner image of the woman faded away, so what he was using was not magic but rather magecraft. So that was the difference, 'thanks for that Rin', Naruto recognised the voice from the knights memories, Rin the woman who stood beside him no matter what, he wondered, are the visions starting to come even when he was awake? Naruto shook the thought off but it was still settled in the back of his mind, the blond checked the clock, five am, time to get started.

The blond jumped out the window, heading for his usual training grounds, he hadn't felt a shadow for the last two months, which was strange, that was very strange, it had never taken this long for one to show up before. The blond cocked his head to the side, he knew he could copy the demonic sword if he wished, that meant he should eventually be able to copy the knights long range attack, "maybe I should take up archery" Naruto muttered to himself while heading to his training ground, once again not noticing the flash of red following him from behind.

**XXX**

It had been two months since they had been named cell one, two months, and to Naruto, they had been two months of hell. He swore to every Kami both known and unknown that he would kill that damned cat Tora the next time that he saw the damned thing, he swore it. Lately Konoha had been swamped with D rank missions most of which seemed to ask, ASK, for cell one, Naruto was starting to wonder if this was someone's sick idea of a joke.

If it was then Naruto was going with what his gut was telling him, blame Zelretch. He didn't know who the man was or if he was even alive but something inside Naruto was telling him one thing, blame Zelretch, what the blond didn't know was that he was right. It was a truth the red knight had come to acknowledge throughout his life, short though it was. The truth was simple, blame the root and blame Zelretch and you will have blamed the culprits nine times out of ten. The one time you were wrong the culprit was generally less annoying than those two as well. Not that Naruto knew that, all the blond knew was that his gut was telling him to blame someone he had never met and he was running with it, the blond wasn't sure why but it just felt right.

At the current moment cell one and accompanying senseis stood in front of the mission desk, Naruto could see the amusement in his Tou-san's eyes. Damn that man, he would pay for the travesty of making Naruto hunt down Tora, Naruto may have been a bit rusty after almost three years out of the game but he would remind his Tou-san exactly why he was called the prank prince from hell, oh yes he would. Mintao caught the glint in his son's eyes and shivered, he knew that insane glint, it was the same one Naruto had in his eyes before Minato used the hiraishin to get to work early. Only to end up in the hot springs in the middle of the Namikaze-Uzumaki Minato **fan boy** club meeting, his screams could be heard across Konoha that morning. This all happened because he had forbidden Naruto from seeing Kushina after they pulled a prank together, the ban had only been for a week, considering what happened to him. Minato had cancelled it on day one when Naruto had told him there was more where that came from.

The elder blond shivered, time to get cell one the hell out of here before Naruto could start plotting another downfall for him, actually how did he pull that off anyway. The hiraishin should have been way too complicated for an intermediate seal master to redraw, he would have needed help and seal master that also loved pranking people that only left, ah yes, the entirety of the Uzumaki side of the family.

**XXX**

On a training field Namikaze-Uzumaki Setsuna sneezed, before smiling, for some reason she was reminded of the prank she and her Sochi had played on her husband, they would have to do that again some time, it was fun!

**XXX**

Minato shivered in fear, like an unmerciful god was looking down on him and smiling at his soon to be misfortune. He looked at cell one, Akimichi Choji, Haruno Sakura, Nara Shikamaru, Uchiha Sasuke, Uzumkai Kushina and his son Namikaze-Uzumaki Naruto. It was a cell filled with clan heirs, and that made it a difficult team to deal with, on one hand if he gave them missions that were too easy then the other clans would either think he was insulting them, or codling his son. On the other hand if one of the heirs actually got killed the family may well accuse him of doing them in deliberately. It was a freaking nightmare to deal with. The blond sighed and put his face in his hands for a second before looking at the team again. "Okay your choices are, going after Tora again, weeding a garden, painting a fence or grocery shopping, which one do you guys want?"

Minato hid the smirk on his face at Naruto's twitching eyebrow, as a shiver of terror went down his spine, okay maybe that hadn't been one of his better ideas. Kakashi saved him by speaking up. "Actually sensei we were hoping that you would give a C rank mission, they are ready for it" Kakashi stated looking at the blond haired Hokage. Minato rubbed his chin, this would be the first time a cell was deployed outside of Konoha, it would be good to test there effectiveness in a real combat situation. Minato sighed, why did it feel like he was going to have to do a mess of paperwork now?

"Okay then Kakashi, if you think they're ready then fine. I have three to chose from, nothing to difficult and before you ask I am NOT sending them on bandit elimination the first time out of the village." Minato shot a quick look at Kakahsi, who at least had the grace to rub the back of his head sheepishly. "Okay I have one escort mission to Nami, a message to Taki, though you do have to wait for them to give a reply before coming back and finally a escort to the capital, though I doubt you want that last one." Minato added looking tired. Kakashi cocked his head to the side along with everyone else in the room. "Politics" the elder blond clarified, Kakashi gulped then nodded. Yeah that last one was definitely off the list.

"Okay then Nami it is" the silver haired Jonin declared, Kakashi had enough to do with politics when it came to council meetings, the silver haired man was not doing an entire mission based around them. Mianto nodded and handed the scroll over to the Jonin who nodded his thanks.

Minato hit a button on his desk "please tell them to bring Tazuna in" he asked politely. Before shutting the intercom off when he heard the confirmation from his secretary. The door opened and what looked like a heavily intoxicated man walked in, Naruto sighed, this was going to be a long mission he could see it already.

"This is what you're giving me?" the old drunk asked, sounding surprised. "Three real ninja and a bunch of kids!?"

Minato shrugged, "Unless you need protection from more than just some random bandits then they will be fine, though most of them don't look like it they are all clan heirs." Minato couldn't help but direct a look at Naruto when he said that, unlike the others Naruto carried no clan markings, in fact if it wasn't for the resemblance that Naruto had to Minato then no one would have even known he was a clan heir. It wasn't that Naruto had no marking on his clothing, just he had no clan markings, on the back of Naruto's red jacket there was a strange symbol, a white cross with a single dot over each of its outstretched arms, where the hell did Naruto even get the idea for that anyway? (If you want an idea of what that looks like search Rin Tohsaka in google it's the same design that's on the front of her red shirt)

The old drunk shrugged but looked unsure. "If you say so" he said to the blond Hokage before turning his attention to the group. "My name's Tazuna the super bridge builder, and you all are going to be escorting me to Nami no Kuni, I expect the best protection you can give me." The bridge builder stated, Naruto's senses went haywire, the man was lying, the way his eyes shifted, his body moved, he was lying about something, or at least keeping something back. The blond chose not to reveal it now. But he would be keeping a close eye on the bridge builder. It wouldn't do to have one of his precious people put in danger.

Yugao turned to the team. "Okay then all of you go home, we will be leaving at nine hundred sharp tomorrow so be on time, I would say eight hundred but it's going to take an hour or so to find Kakashi so nine should be fine." The purple haired former ANBU stated before taking her leave via Shunshin, closely followed by Asuma and Kakashi, who didn't even bother trying to deny that he would be doing his best to be late. Naruto sighed, stupid lazy sensei, he watched as the others filed out of the room but he stayed behind, this needed to be talked about now.

Minato saw that his son waited around when the other left and the man was slightly intrigued, why was he here? Had the boy really figured it out, it wouldn't inconceivable for it to happen but it would still be a good skill, who was he kidding it would be a great skill, if Naruto had managed to figure it out. "Sooo, what are you still here about Naruto-kun?" Minato asked, Naruto cocked his head to the side, just what game was his Tou-san playing?

"I'm sure you already know but Tazuna was lying." Naruto stated, Minato's eyebrows rose, his son was right of course but how did he come to that conclusion, that was what Minato wondered.

"Oh and how exactly did you figure that out?" Minato asked genuinely interested, Naruto already saw the game his father wanted to play, Minato had a habit of testing his children with logic and intuition games like this.

"The way he looked, the way he moved." Naruto responded which caused Minato to raise an eyebrow.

"How so?"Minato asked.

"Tazuna-san's eyes were dilated, showing excitement, he couldn't meet your eyes or any of ours. He was unsure about taking Genin on this mission because he feels we are too young despite our Jonin sensei's. That seems to tell me that he thinks the chances of death are quite high and as such he does not want to risk young lives. However the most suspicious thing that happened was Tazuna-san actually came to Konoha to begin with. As Tanigakure no Sato is far closer to Nami no kuni than Konoha, this means that it couldn't just be some coincidence for him to come here as if he was on a business trip Tazuna-san would have ended up closer to Tanigakure as that is where the trade routes tend to move through. Not only that but Tazuna-san hasn't brought any supplies from Hi no Kuni so for what reason is he really here? As Tazuna-san only requested a C rank mission he probably can't afford any more and as such is hoping that we continue after the truth comes out. The question that comes now is why Tazuna-san did this, Nami should be a wealthy nation considering its proximity to the trade routes, wait, Nami can only use boats to make it to the mainland and does that mean someone has taken over the shipping routes?" Naruto asked as he finished his breakdown as to why he believed Tazuna to be lying. Not that he could have done it alone, but if you mixed the knights memories with some basic geography and Naruto's instincts then you got someone who was quite hard to fool.

Minato nodded approvingly at his sons reasoning. "Excellent reasoning Naruto" the elder blond said with a smile. "You are right Tazuna is lying, Nami no kuni is currently in an economic depression, as you guessed someone has cut off their sea bound trading routes and as such now controls their lively hoods. Ninety percent of which is going into the man's pocket, this man's name is Gato, one of the richest men in the world and de-facto ruler of Nami as he already had the Daimyo killed as well as his children. So neither Tazuna or Nami could pay any more than a C rank mission, but even knowing all this I am still sending cell one. Between Kakashi, Yugao and Asuma they should be able to handle any danger. Nice catching it though Naruto" the yonger blond nodded and walked out the door, Minato looked at his paperwork that had somehow tripled in the time he was talking to Naruto and cell one. "MOTHERFUCKER!"

Naruto smiled to himself as he walked down the stairs, it seemed his Tou-san had found the paperwork, good.

**XXX  
**

Kushina yawned as she got ready for bed, she was having an early night as she had no idea what to expect on the mission tomorrow. Well that and the dreams were getting more frequent so she may well need the extra few hours to get back to sleep after one of them woke her up. Then she felt it, like a shock wave of energy had been had ripped through her home and the energy that produced that shock wave felt...dark. Kushina threw on her ninja clothing she needed to find out just what the hell had made that power surge.

The red head didn't take the time to tell anyone else, simply opting to jump out of her window. After all everyone should have felt that shock wave, the other Uzumaki ninja should be mobilising soon. The red head raced through the night, heading to a more and more unpopulated area of Konoha, the dark feeling was growing stronger, it felt like a pile of rotting refuse had been pushed into her soul, her breathing was coming faster and that power, it just felt wrong.

She could feel herself getting closer and as she did Kushina could hear something. Kushina could hear the screaming of steel. The red head landed on a roof and her eyes widened, what was standing under the moonlight was a monster. The grotesque creature stood at a high six feet and had a human shape but that was where the similarities ended. It's body used to be human Kushina could see that, but whatever was human about that thing died off long ago, it's ribcage was spilt open, a black blood like substance dripping on to the ground, ribs sharpened to points, and making movements like a mouth. Allowing Kushina to see the creature had no internal organs, merely a mass of ever changing shadows, there was no skin of its face, rather the creature had pushed the skull of it's human host through the skin creating a bone white and blood red face, eyes replaced by glowing red coals filled with malice and hate. Its legs and arms had split apart, forming a mockery of a human shape, the legs were twisted and broken and the parts that were destroyed were replaced with shadows allowing the monster to support its bulk. The arms had become mangled, the bones splitting out of the skin and forming claws and other weapons, shadows supporting them. She could see the moving mass on its back and almost vomited. The things spine had been forced out of its back and was being used as some kind of anchor, shadows wrapping themselves around it. The demon screamed, an unholy sound, a shock wave of dark power hit her again, steel screamed.

Kushina's mouth dropped open, as the monsters left arm dropped to the ground courtesy of a black sword held firmly in the hand of Namikaze-Uzumaki Naruto. The blond was breathing heavy, blood covering some of his clothing from various small wounds across this body, and yet despite all that, he was smiling. "That's one down" the blond stated, before jumping out of the way as shadows lacerated the ground he was just standing on. Naruto rolled across the ground and stood back up, black and white swords held firmly in hand, his grin got wider. This was going to be one hell of a fight. Kushina got ready to intervene when a hand came down on her shoulder and she looked up into the eyes of Namikaze-Uzumaki Setsuna.

"Not right now Kushina-chan, for now we just have to watch. Please just trust me with this." The Namikaze matriarch almost begged, Kushina just nodded uncertainly at the elder red heads request. Their eyes went back to the death match, each holding a Jutsu ready to intervene should her friend need her help.

**XXX**

Naruto grunted as he twisted to the side, narrowly avoiding being impaled through his abdomen. The blond vaulted off the side of a building and brought Kanshou down, the blade cut through the darkness like moonlight and left a deep gash on the things ribs. He twisted avoiding it's counter attack and Bakuya took her turn, the black blade flashed forward carving a furrow into the underside of the things right arm, Naruto instantly put both of his piandao into a defencive cross on the left side of his body. Less than a second before the things leg impacted his side and sent him flying, the blond skidded across the ground, before stabbing Bakuya into the earth and stopping himself, barely holding in a groan when the quick stop almost ripped his shoulder out of it's socket.

Naruto gulped down the air like it was water. It was times like this he wished he could use chakra in these fights. But the second ANBU felt that much chakra being used inside the village they would be on him before he could blink. That would go against his 'keep everyone in the dark and therefore safe plan' Naruto looked at his opponent, he needed an opening, nothing big, just a split second and he could end this. The problem was that the thing wasn't giving him anything right now. Naruto exhaled swords coming to the familiar position of his sides, the thing charged and Naruto did the same. The bone claws clashed against the twin swords and steel screamed.

"Gah" Naruto twists, the claw sails past him, only ripping his shirt and drawing a thin line of blood, as it invades his territory. This thing is different to the others Naruto had faced, and that made sense, it moved differently and looked different, it was most probably an upgrade to the versions that Naruto had been forced to fight so far. He could no longer block the attacks outright, so the blond had to settle for dodging and parrying, the claws still breaking his defence nine strikes out of ten, though he was able to avoid any major damage, he needed an opening and even a split second would do. His insides felt like they were burning up, almost melting, he was starting to over use his magic circuits, the burning sensation would increase the longer this took, Naruto ignored the feeling, right now he needed to pay all of his attention to the enemy in front of him.

Another strained grunt comes out of Naruto's mouth, as he pushes another attack away, thanks to his eyes he could at least follow the things attacks, if not for that Naruto would have died long ago. But even with his reinforcement he can barely keep up, it is only thanks to his experience in his previous battles against the shadows that Naruto can survive right now. In short, he is using his inferiority as a weapon, to block the shadows onslaught. The blond was controlling where the attacks would come by leaving fatal openings in his guard, so that he already knew where the attack was going before it was launched. Of course Naruto would die if he did not dodge or parry the attacks, but if he had to choose between getting cut up slowly or risking instant death, then Naruto would prefer to risk instant death. Fortunately for him this shadow despite being stronger and faster than the others he had killed still seemed to lack reason, so he could easily think of another thirty or so ways to show and opening.

Planing using cultivated battle experience, prediction using the information obtained. These are the nerves of steel and the 'mind's eye' that one obtains through training, it's nothing extraordinary. Just a skill that Naruto gained through his own hard work, it is not innate like his instinct, but rather a simple weapon that anyone can gain if they put in enough effort, and right now it was that effort and simple weapon that was keeping him alive. Claws and blades clash again and the shadow backs off, it seems disappointed, as if it were expecting more from its opponent, Naruto just used the break in combat to catch his breath, he needed to end this soon. The shadow also seems confused, Naruto should not, and indeed cannot, match it in speed or power and yet it still hasn't been able to land a definitive blow against the blond, and that confused the rudimentary animal.

The claws and the blade clash again, the claws come down to take his head, Naruto twists out of the way, Kanshou and Bakuya stab in the shadow dodges. The sharpened ribs try to take off his arm, Naruto counters with a quick slash upwards severing some of the bone teeth, before side stepping the counter attack in the form of a claw aimed at his heart. The blond jumped back, the shadows from the back of the thing explode outwards and cut apart the ground he had been standing on previously. Naruto looks at his opponent, the blond already knows he hasn't got much left, his circuits are burning, arms shaking from exhaustion and finally enough sweat is pouring off his body that it was beginning to make a small puddle at his feet, he needed to end this now. The blond charged, the right claw was swung at him, there!, his opening, the blond let his body fall towards the floor, the claw passing over him harmlessly, Kanshou came up and stabbed into the things arm, just above it's elbow. The blond jumps using Kanshou as a pivot and spins himself in mid air, landing lightly on the things shoulder, the blood red eyes now show something other than hate and malice, fear. Bakuya comes forward splitting the skull and the monster dies, evaporating into shadow, leaving nothing behind but scars from their battle, Naruto drops to his knees, "T-T-Trace o-off" the blond stuttered out, before almost passing out from exhaustion. Naruto sent chakra to his arms and legs and stood up, he was spent. The blond jumped back on to the roof tops and headed slowly back to the compound, dear Kami he was tired.

**XXX**

Kushina's mouth just opened and closed as her brain tried to make sense of what she had just witnessed. Her brain felt like it was on fire, that thing shouldn't exist everything inside her from the moment she saw that thing was screaming at her to kill it. Magus Killer, those two words echoed endlessly through her mind, what did they mean? She knew, Kushina wasn't sure how she knew, but she knew that those words were connected to that thing, no to those things, there were more, she was sure of it. But from the looks of thing Naruto had been doing this for a long time, how long? Kushina had an idea, about three years, had he really been killing these things for three years? Kushina didn't entertain the thought that Naruto had left even a single one of those abomination's he encountered alive, he would kill them, all of them. After all how could he not? They were not supposed to exist, they needed to die, that was the only thing those abominations had the right to be, the only thing they had was the right to be destroyed. Those abominations were an existence that Uzumaki Kushina could not approve of.

Kushina turned to the elder red head who watched Naurto slowly make his way home over the roof tops, "tell me everything" Kushina asked, Setsuna nodded. It wasn't like she could just tell Kushina to go home and forget she saw anything after all. The younger red head was if nothing else blunt and resourceful. Kushina would find a way to get involved one way or the other, the younger red head may as well be on Setsuna's side if it was going to happen either way.

And so the elder red head told Kushina everything she knew, from the shadows to her theories on their creation and how long she believed Naruto had been fighting them for. As well as the fact he seemed to be able to use an energy that wasn't chakra, _'prana' _a voice whispered in the back of Kushina's mind. The voice was rough and cold but somehow held a tone of warmth to it, Kushina nodded to Setsuna.

"So let me get this straight, you found out about this, only two months ago?" Setsuna nodded, "Naruto has probably been doing this for at least three years and other than the fact we know that he can use something besides chakra we have no idea what it is or what it does?" Setsuna sighed before nodding again.

"The real problem is that only Naruto can really answer most of the questions that we have at the moment but asking him risks pushing him further away. It makes for a rather delicate approach since we can't really ask anything yet." Setsuna finished sighing.

Kushina nodded before sighing. "Stubborn bastard" she muttered, causing Setsuna to chuckle.

"Now then I do believe you have a mission tomorrow you might want to go home and get some sleep Kushina-chan" Setsuna advised, Kushina nodded. That was if she could actually get to sleep, the red head wasn't so sure after what she had seen, Kushina jumped off, taking the long way back to avoid accidentally running into the exhausted Naruto. Setsuna took one last look at the ally where her son had fought his death match before tracing the seal on her forearm. Said seal contained the recording equipment she had been using to keep a record of the battles, Setsuna still wasn't sure how her son could sense the shadows from their home when she needed to be up close to do so but she couldn't leave this problem alone much longer. Naruto had obviously been handling it quite well over the last three years and only one missing persons report came in every two months or so, she guessed the missing persons were those corrupted by the shadows, but fairly soon she would have to tell Minato. She had enough evidence she could convince her husband that she was not insane and hopefully when the cat was out of the bag Naruto would come clean with them. She loved her son, she really did but Setsuna could not let something like this go on when she had a chance to stop it, she just hoped Naruto understood when that happened. She didn't want to alienate her son even more but she could not, and would not, stand back while innocent people died just because she wanted to fix her relationship with her son. If Naruto hated her for this then Setsuna would spend however long it took making it up to him, but she would not let innocent people die, she just hoped her son saw it that way as well.

**XXX  
**

Naruto woke up groggy the next morning and sore as all hell, thank Kami for the Uzumaki regeneration factor or else he really would have some uncomfortable questions to answer. The blond turned over and looked at the clock, five am, he debated on going back to sleep, Kami knew he needed it, but pushed the thought aside and got out of bed before making his way to the shower. When the hot water hit him Naruto had to suppress a moan of almost sexual pleasure, which was just what his abused muscles needed. The blond started to plan his day, he had decided to try his hand at archery and it would be a damned useful skill to have after all. That shadow from yesterday was both stronger and faster than its counter parts but no more intelligent. He was willing to bet that it had only rudimentary instincts to guide it. That meant that it shouldn't be able to stop and arrow if he had the element of surprise and a strong enough bow. Naruto smiled, the bow was definitely strong enough, the bow of the red knight, would be perfect for dispatching the abominations that he had to fight. Even if he still couldn't launch, or even use, that demonic sword, Caladblog, that sword intoxicated him, it was just so wrong and yet so right. The blond shook off his thoughts before getting out of the shower and pulling on his normal clothes before leaving through his traditional exit, the window. It was a testament to Setsuna's skill as a kunoichi that she still hadn't been noticed even after two months as she followed him from behind.

The blond dropped to the ground of training ground twenty nine, "Trace on" his hand came up and gripped the handle of the weapon that had yet to exist. The seven steps were taken and the black bow of the red knight rested comfortably in Naruto's hands, the blond exhaled, there had been nothing wrong with the theory but that was exactly the point, everything works in theory. Naruto inhaled, hands coming to the bow string, an arrow firmly in his mind, the blond pulled back and arrow rested on the bow string. He could feel it inside of him, the seven stages of shooting, much like the seven stages he ran through for his tracing. Step one stance, step two nocking the arrow. Step three draw, step five hold and aim. Naruto's breathing slows down as he zeros in on his target, a small knoll on the side of a tree. His breathing stops as the blond holds his breath, step six release, the arrow leapt away from the bow and cut through the air with an audible hiss, Naruto let the grip on the bow relax. Step seven the follow through, the step that involves one simply sitting back and accepting the result. Naruto knew the seven steps of archery as intimately as he knew himself, after all the seven steps he used for his tracing mage craft were based on them.

The arrow hissed through the air before burring its self half way to the fetching on its end. Naruto found that to be understandable after all this bow was made to fire those demonic arrows. A sharp pain cut through his head, _'Broken Phantasm'_, the words cut through him, and Naruto nodded to himself, yes a broken phantasm. Hell the blond couldn't even bring the bow to full draw it was simply too much for him right now, even when using both his reinforcement and chakra, he would need to invest in a bow that he could draw and save the knights bow for later. Naruto shrugged off the thoughts and placed his hand back on the bow string. He needed to keep practising if he ever wanted to be able to fire a broken phantasm like the knight.

**XXX**

Naruto stretched in the sun light next to the main gate, it was eight thirty and he had just arrived which was a good thing considering that Kakashi and the other sensei's still hadn't turned up, it seemed like the silver haired Jonin had put a bit more effort into his hiding this morning. Why he chose the day of the teams first C rank mission Naruto would never know but he did, and so cell one waited.

And waited

And waited

And waited

It was closer to eleven am, when the three sensei finally turned up, Kakashi amazingly enough not tied up. Though Asuma and Yugao did have the grace to look sheepish for the man, Naruto sighed as he looked at the three "he actually tried to hide this time didn't he?" The two Jonin rubbed the back of their heads and chuckled, while Tazuna just looked annoyed. Naruto just sighed, he was used to Kakashi's antics from when the silver haired man visited, unfortunately most of the others hadn't quite adapted to Kakashi's...unique outlook and sense of timing.

"YOU'RE LATE!" Sakura, Kushina and Sasuke yelled at the copy nin, Choji and Shikamaru just sighed, typical Kakashi.

"Maa Maa, I had to get an old lady's cat down from a tree but then I found out it was a black cat and had to go home to pray, you know to stave off bad luck. Then I went to see a Shinto priest just to make extra sure before I got lost on the road of life." Kakashi finished, the Genin's jaws collectively almost hitting the ground.

"Kakashi" Naruto started "I think I speak for everyone here when I say that was one of the worst excuses I ever heard" Kakashi just eye smiled at him.

"One of the worst?" Sakura asked, Naruto shrugged before sighing.

"Yeah one of the worst, just trust me here Kakashi has worse ones than that." Sakura looked at him in a disbelieving fashion. "Sure you look like that now but you'll learn" Naruto stated, the other Genin shrugged, how much worse could it be?

Tazuna just looked increasingly annoyed. "Can we please leave now?" the gruff bridge builder asked, Asuma shrugged.

"We're going to need a few more minutes, nothing too long I assure you but we have to make sure the Genin packed everything they should have, otherwise they could well be useless if we run into bandits." The former fire guardian clarified, Tazuna nodded looking slightly less disgruntled by the whole affair. Asuma turned to his charges and sighed. "Okay Choji from the top what have you got?" the smoking Sarutobi asked.

The Akimichi looked up at his sensei. "One hundred kunai, two hundred shuriken, fifty explosive notes, sixty meters of ninja wire, a bag full of chakra replenishing pills and other medical pills. A storage scroll with some food in it, fifty water bottles and fifty ration bars." The Akimichi finished, looking at Shikamaru who sighed.

"Troublesome" the Nara muttered under his breath. "One hundred kunai, two hundred shuriken, sixty explosive notes, seventy meters of wire, a storage scroll with fifty water bottles and thirty ration bars and a Shogi board." Shikamrau finished yawning, Asuma looked intrigued.

"You play Shogi?" Asuma asked, interest colouring his tone, Shikamaru nodded and Asuma smiled. "Would you care for a game when we get to Nami?" the habitual smoker asked, Shikamaru just smirked and nodded. Yugao chose now to take over, considering Asuma was going to be talking to Shikamaru about Shogi for awhile.

"You're up next if you wouldn't mind Sakura-chan" the former ANBU said brightly, Naruto sighed, they were about to be disappointed, he could just tell.

"I have fifty kunai and one hundred shuriken, twenty explosive notes, thirty meters of ninja wire, twenty ration bar and twenty bottles of water." Sakura finished, Naruto cocked his head to the side, okay that could have been worse.

Yugao spent a second appraising Sakura. "Okay that's not bad Sakura I take it you packed based on what the academy guide lines told you?" the purple haired former ANBU inquired, Sakura nodded. "Okay that should be fine for this mission but next time, pack a few more things like extra kunai and shuriken as well as some medical supplies in case we need them, don't forget Sakura your allies may find themselves lacking some equipment due to whatever circumstances so you need to think about them as well. The academy guidelines are only for one person, remember that next time okay." Sakura nodded again and Yuago turned her attention to Sasuke "You're up Sasuke-san." The raven haired Uchiha nodded.

"One hundred fifty kunai, three hundred shuriken, fifty explosive notes, fifty wire, forty ration bars, thirty water bottles, a bingo book, a map and a compass." The black haired Uchiha finished, Yugao nodded appreciatively to Sasuke, good that one of the Genin thought to bring a map it would be invaluable if they were separated. Naruto made a mental note to pack a map next time, that was a damned good idea.

Yugao directed her look at Kushina. "Three hundred kunai, six hundred shuriken, two hundred explosive tags, one hundred fifty metres of wire, a full sealing kit including ink and spare scrolls. A ninjato forty five ration bars, fifty water bottles, blood replenishing pills, medical kit, several bowls of Ichiraku ramen and intro to sealing by Uzumaki Datte." The red head finished, ah the wonders of Fuinjutsu, allowing one to carry ridiculously large loads in the form of tiny scrolls. Yugao nodded at Kushina with a smile.

"You're up next Naru-chan" Yugao said brightly, Naruto growled, stupid Yugao and her stupid nicknames, HE WAS NOT FOUR ANYMORE DAMMIT!

"One hundred tags, sixty five metres of wire, a medical kit, full sealing kit including tags, scrolls and pre-made blood infused ink. My two wakizashi, some chakra replenishing pills, several large scale demolition tags, some paralysing poison's, and enough sharp and bladed weaponry to fight a small county" Naruto finished, that last line was deliberate, and Naruto would admit that he got a kick out of seeing Tazuna flinch like that.

"Okay then" Asuma interjected, just finishing up his conversation about Shogi with Shikamaru. "Now we can leave Tazuna-san, I take it you can't wait to get home."

Tazuna nodded, "Indeed I really do want to see my daughter and grandson again" the bridge builder said fondly. Naruto didn't think this was a calculated move on Tazuna's part but with that one line he had become more than a client to most of the Genin, becoming far more relatable as a person. When the truth about Nami no kuni finally came out to the open, that would go a long way towards getting them to keep going.

Kakashi nodded to the man, "Okay then" the copy nin announced cheerfully. "Formation C, Kushina, Naruto you're up front, Sasuke, Sakura, Shikamaru you guy's take up a three point position around Tazuna, Choji, you take the rearguard position. Asuma, Yugao and myself will be right behind you guys." The six Genin scrambled to take up their positions before walking out the gate and heading into one hell of a shit storm.

**XXX  
**

It wasn't until around two hours later when someone inevitably asked a question. "Uh Yugao-sensei, do they have any shinobi in Nami?" Sakura asked, Yugao shook her head.

"No they don't Sakura-chan, instead they rely on the larger nations that surround them to hire shinobi from. Though this does help Nami greatly as it is able to remain completely neutral, because of its lack of a shinobi village. Though most small to medium sized countries do have a shinobi village, you could actually class Nami as the exception to that rule, in addition to that only the five great shinobi nations leaders have the right to be called Kage, though some of the smaller villages still call their leaders that as s sign of respect. Does that answer your question Sakura-chan?" Yugao asked smiling at her female student.

Up front with Kushina and Naruto all was quiet, the blond could feel two presences move away from them and guessed it was two ninja pulling back. That was probably a good choice on the ninja's part, with three Jonin level ninja the two would have been torn apart, but that also made Naruto shiver for another reason. The two would come back, most likely with reinforcements making their job far harder, Naruto couldn't help but sigh to himself and this was going to be a pain he could already tell. Naruto looked at the red head next to him and thought about striking up conversation before discarding the thought. He would not risk his precious people. Naruto wasn't sure he could live with himself if he got them involved and they died, he felt the knight's pain when his companions died, Naruto would not allow that to happen, he would not allow his precious people to die no matter what. If that meant that they hated him, if that meant they despised him, then so be it, so long as it kept them safe Naruto could endure that. Naruto turned his thoughts are they trudged along back to what could be happening in Konoha, returning to the present just in time to catch Asuma saying that it would take two days to reach Nami. Right before turning his contemplation back to what was happening back in Konoha, he wasn't there any more to kill off any shadows if they showed up, dear Kami he really hoped his family was okay, what was his Kaa-chan doing now?

**XXX**

Setsuna walked through the Hokage tower looking much like she was, a woman on a mission. Her long red hair was pulled back into a tight pony tail, vibrant purple eyes looking focused the Namikaze matriarch was dressed in the outfit of a Konoha Jonin, but the vest was instead Uzumaki red rather than the traditional Konoha green signifying her link to her clan. Her feet were firmly enclosed in tight combat boots, after seeing the kind of slashing attacks the shadows were capable of Setsuna did not want to risk losing her feet. She was here for one reason and one reason only, to tell her husband what she had found out about their eldest and hopefully convince him she wasn't crazy either. Behind her stood her father Uzumaki Shuhei and her mother Uzumaki Isane, Naruto was their grandson after all, they deserved to know as well. Setsuna did suppose that you could make the same argument for Naruto's brother and sister but Setsuna did not want them involved in life or death combat which was inevitably what this would lead to, she didn't want that for Akio and Mayumi, at least not yet.

Setsuna stalked up to the secretary. "Is my husband in?" the red head asked, seeing the secretary nod the Namikaze matriarch, walked straight up the stairs, upon seeing an ANBU in front of the office Setsuna grew frustrated. "I would like to see my husband please" she requested.

The ANBU operative shook his head "I am sorry Setsuna-sama but Hokage-sama is in a meeting at the moment with the elder council you will have to wait, I apologise." Setsuna smiled at the ANBU before bringing him into a vicious knee to the sternum and knocking him out via an elbow to the side of the head. Setsuna placed the man on the floor, had he been any less polite he would have been thrown. Before throwing the door open, not even bothering to acknowledge her parents smiling behind her. Screw the elder council. This was about her baby whatever the hell they wanted could wait Kami dammit!

"Minato I'm telling you if he's given to me Naruto will make for a fine shinobi, please just think about it. I know that you dislike what I did with my ROOT ANBU but you cannot deny that I get results, if you give him to me I guarantee you I will make Naruto into the finest weapon in Konoha." Danzo stated, Minato looked annoyed, how dare these old bastards come and tell him what to do with his own child, then he noticed Setsuna and went bone white.

"Did you just say you wanted to make my son a weapon Danzo? And you and Homura support it, don't you Koharu?" Came Setsuna's sickly sweet voice, the three elders went bone white, it was well known in Konoha just how protective Setsuna was of her children. How protective all Uzumaki were really, it was probably something that was strengthened by the destruction of Uzu.

Homura decided that he should at least try to explain their reasoning, it wasn't going to help, the old man acknowledged that much. But as the boy's mother he did feel that Setsuna at least deserved to know why they wanted to turn Naruto into an excellent shinobi, a path he could well be straying from given his academic grades and degree of interaction with his team mates. "Now Setsuna as I am sure you know both you and Minato made a lot of enemies in the last war and Iwa amongst the other villages would do a lot to kill you or your children off. If they see an opening that is exactly what they will do, we all know from Naruto's grades in the academy that he is a gifted to say the least but from the way he acts he will never reach his full potential. Not only that but the way he acts is reminiscent of Orochimaru before his defection, none of us want a repeat of that. I know that you don't want to think of your son like that Setsuna but we cannot risk another Orochimaru and in addition to that we cannot risk one of the Yondaime's children becoming a missing ninja. That would send the wrong kind of message to the other villages not to mention be a great blow to our own morale. Setsuna I know that you do not like Danzo or his training methods but please, if you can't get Naruto to embrace his full potential or at the very least stop him from being a flight risk, would you at least consider allowing Danzo to train him, with your supervision of course, but please at least give it a chance." Homura finished, Setsuna looked at the old man for a second.

"Homura, the fact that you didn't demand that I have to hand over my son over to Danzo is the only reason that I am letting the three of you leave this room alive, now get out. I have some business to discuss with my husband about my son." Setsuna finished pointing at the door, Homura bowed and walked out without a second thought and he always was the smartest of the three. Danzo and Koharu followed but at a far more sedate pace until Setsuna allowed some of her killing intent to leak out at which point they ran, Shuhei shutting the door behind them.

"Not that I'm not happy that you got rid of them Setsuna-koi but what did you want to talk to me about?" Minato asked, cocking his head to the side.

"Actually I am quite interested in that myself musume" Isane put in, Shuhei settled for sitting down on one of the couches an amused smile on his face.

Setsuna took a shuddering breath. "It's about Naruto as you all know he has been acting very strangely over the last three years." Setsuna stated, Shuhei snorted.

"A little strangely you say musume, now that is the understatement of the Kami damned century. That kid used to love nothing more than being around his family and friends and then one day his entire personality does a one eighty. I'm no Yamanaka but that kind of thing shouldn't be possible unless it was done by something big, but we never figured out what that something was and Naruto wasn't about to talk about it. Then again considering you've brought us all here together like this I'm willing to bet you've found out what's been eating away at the kid. That's good musume that's real good, the entirety of the Uzumaki clan was really starting to worry about Naruto." Shuhei said leaning back into his chair. Isane and Minato perked up at his statement.

"Is it true Setsuna do you really know what's wrong with Naruto?" Minato asked, hope alive in his voice, Setsuna nodded grimly.

"I do, but the problem is not going to be as easy to fix as you imagine." Setsuna stated her mouth in a firm line, Isane's eyebrows rose.

"What do you mean musume, what's wrong with little Naru-chan?"

Setsuna took a deep breath and pulled out a storage scroll and added some chakra to the array. A puff of smoke appeared and on top of the scroll were a large glass like screen and a small crystal. "I swear to Kami what I am about to show you is one hundred percent true and nothing I have here is faked." Setsuna stated, placing the glass where everyone could see and attaching a thread of chakra from the crystal to the glass. A picture of Naruto at night appeared on the glass tablet, a black and white sword in either hand, and then the nightmare began.

The shadow's Naurto's fight against thim, the strange weapons he was capable of wielding. The power that wasn't chakra, the dead bodies, the missing person reports, all of them made sense to Minato now, those people weren't missing. They were consumed! "When did you find this out?" The elder blond asked his tone a mix between awe and horror.

"About two months ago" Setsuna admitted before holding up her hand to forestall Minato's arguments. "Minato would you really have believed me if I had just tried to tell you this?"

The blond grumbled for a second before shaking his head, this was a lot to take in after all. "No probably not" he admitted. "Now the real question becomes what we can do about it, if we approach Naruto now he might just push all of us away but we can't just leave this alone either."

Surprisingly it was Isane that came up with the answer. "What if we used Fuinjutsu?" She suggested, before looking at Setsuna. "I assume you managed to collect the remains of some of those creatures?" Setsuna nodded, it was hard when their bodies almost always broke down into nothing but shadows but occasionally there was some residue that carried the same sense of wrongness as the shadows left behind. Setsuna collected that increase she ever found something she could do with it. "Good" Isane stated "then we can use what was left over from those things to create a seal that can track them, spread it in a barrier form over Konoha and we shouldn't have a problem tracking them within the village. From there we can find out if chakra can kill these things!" Isane stated, the other three occupants of the room sighed.

Setsuna looked into her mothers eyes and smiled "well then let's get started."

**Wrought Iron Hero Chapter Three- End**

And that is chapter three done, I do hope you enjoyed it, for those of you who wanted Naruto's stats they are below. Keep in mind however that just because he has some of these abilities does not mean that he can make full use of them, yet anyway.

**Class:** Archer

**Master:** None

**True Name:** Namikaze-Uzumaki Naruto

**Sex:** Male

**Hight/Weight:** 4 Foot 9 Inches or 151 cm Weight 45 Kg

**Age:** 13

**Alignment:** Chaotic Good

**Class Abilities:**

**Magic Resistance ****D: **Cancel _Single-Action_ spells. Magic Resistance of the same degree of an amulet that rejects magical energy.

**Independent Action A+:** Like all other pseudo Servants that gained their powers Naruto has Independent Action rank A+ allowing him to fight and exist without a master indefinitely due to being an actual living human rather than a traditional Servant. However also like the other pseudo Servants Naruto is capable of contracting a master to increase his prana reserves and to assist him in battle. However Naruto also has a tendency to act on his own rather than work with others, making him more independent than most of the other pseudo Servants.

**Strength:** D rank

**Endurance:** C rank

**Agility:** D rank

**Magical Energy:** D rank

**Luck:** A+

**Noble Phantasm:** ?

**Personal Skills:**

**Clairvoyance:** **D rank- **Allows clear vision of distant targets and improves body movement and vision. Naruto is capable of keeping track of fast-moving object within a range of 2 kilometres. ( Naruto acquires this by applying Reinforcement to his eyes). It should be noted that just because Naruto can see them does not mean that Naruto can move fast enough to react to them.

**Magecraft:**** D- rank-** Naruto only holds knowledge of his and Archer's personal brand of Magecraft and his understanding even of his own are incomplete.

**Minds Eye (True):** **B rank: **Insight fostered by training.

A kind of "combat logic" that allows for calm analysis of any situation, the enemies ability regardless of danger and consideration of all possible actions in that particular situation.

If there is even a 1% chance of a comeback this ability greatly improves the chances of success.

Naruto's mind's eye is not some kind of psychic ability but rather an ability brought forth by a combination of inheriting the powers of counter guardian EMIYA and his own training as a ninja from a young age. It is simply an ability that anyone can gain through enough hard work. Naruto's mind's eye is particularly dangerous when combined with his Instinct.

**Instinct A rank:** The power to "feel" the most favourable developments for oneself during battle. Refined sixth sense that close to true precognition. Naruto is capable of fighting while lacking his sight almost instinctively, though it must be noted that even if Naruto can feel the best course of action for himself he may not be fast or strong enough to take advantage of the opportunity.

**Golden Rule** **B Rank:** Naruto still experiences money problems, mostly caused by Jiriaya, but a quick trip to a gambling house will refill his pockets without a problem.

**Charisma** **B Rank:** Suitable for a king of a country. Naruto has the ability of turning all but his most hated enemies into his allies, though under the right circumstances he can even change them.

**Chakra Capacity B rank:** Chakra levels suitable for a lower ranked Jonin or an exceptionally highly skilled Chunin, Naruto's massive chakra reserves are brought on by his ancestry as an Uzumaki.

**Presence Concealment- C+ rank: **Naruto finds it easy to avoid ANBU level ninja, provided they are not actively looking for him or on alert. The effectiveness of this skill goes down when he takes preparation to attack.


	4. Chapter 4

**Wrought Iron Hero**

**Chapter Four: Tainted Ideal**

Authors note-

Chapter four, man was this fun to write. That I can promise you, nothing really to say here except there is another Authors note at the end of the chapter just explaining a few things I said within. Also Kinunatzs would you mind getting an account please I wanted to send you this answer when you first left the review, also it's at the bottom of the story.

Oh and while I think about it any hard core type-moon fan's might want to take a chill pill before reading this chapter. I did the best job I could but it's been awhile since I've read either Fate/Stay Night or Tsukihime so I'm working off what I remember. I will make mistakes.

Also I was asked about a grail war, yes there will be one just not in the traditional way, I'll leave it to you to decide what I mean by that.

Also to anyone who has just read Naruto chapter 599 anyone else feel like they just got smacked upside the head?

Someone asked when the Namikaze became a clan, well they are in the same league as the Inuzuka so before Konoha was founded. They specialise in nature and shape manipulation of chakra. I'll throw some of their Jutsu in later chapters.

Thank Zimbolical for the BETA job and please go read his new story The Grey Solider an Infinite Stratos Fan Fic.

"Talking"

'Thinking'

"**Boss summon talking"**

**Jutsu when in use not just being talked about**

**Story Start-**

Naruto sighed as he listened to the bickering behind him that was all he could really call it to, bickering. There was no point to it, no constructive purpose behind it, just talking for the sake of talking and if Naruto had to hear about Sakura's new dress one more time he swore he was going to kill someone. Most likely the banshee herself, but someone else was possible, anything just to get her to shut the hell up.

Contrary to what most people believed Nami no Kuni was actually quite far from Konoha, around a week and a half's journey from the village. That was at civilian pace of course, at the speed of a ninja it would probably take around four to three days, depending on how fast the ninja were, and if they were in a hurry it could probably be cut down to less than a day. Due to the fact they were escorting Tazuna, it was going to take around a week and a half to reach the island nation. A week with Sakura. Why did Kami hate him so much? Naruto turned his attention back to his surroundings; the sprawling forests of Hi no Kuni rolling by at a rather slow pace. Still this was better than Tora, not that it was hard, realistically anything was better than Tora.

The blond's eyes glazed as he looked at the forest surrounding the group as his mind started to wander. Most of it was now focused on his newish discoveries about prana and more importantly what he had found about his magecraft. Naruto had effectively tested the limits of what he could do with alteration, adding sharpness to a weapon, making it balanced for throwing, adding weight so the weapon was heavier, he had even tried turning a normal projected sword into an arrow, a trick he had seen the knight use more than once. That last one was far harder than he had originally thought, first he had to alter the physical shape of the sword, and then realign the prana inside the weapon to keep it stable, after the realignment Naruto had to solidify the prana again, creating the basics of the arrow, but it didn't stop there. That was what was involved in just making the sword look like an arrow. After that came the real hard part; the redistribution of weight to make the arrow able to fly, sharpening the arrow's head, while blunting the former swords edges to avoid cutting himself. Then charging the arrow with prana to enhance its piercing capability, only after all that had been done could the arrow be fired with any hope of actually hitting the target Naruto aimed at. All in all there were exactly seven steps to make the sword into an arrow; it was far simpler just to trace a damn arrow, which had originally made Naruto wonder why the knight bothered using his altering method.

Right up until he compared the prana cost, Naruto had exactly ten units of prana the creation of an arrow would take about one tenth of a unit. However tracing sword and then converting it into an arrow only took one thirtieth of a unit, it was simply more cost efficient prana wise. Naruto had exactly ten units of prana to make use of compared to the knight that was nothing; fortunately he preferred working in small whole numbers, kept things easier that way. Another thing Naruto had noted that would make sense for the knight to create arrows from his swords were the magic blades he seemed to carry on him, by converting them into arrows he could effectively use the swords powers but using a long rage delivery system. Still the act of turning a normal sword into an arrow had taken Naruto around thirty seconds; he needed it to be almost instantaneous if it was going to be of any use in battle. Still that gave him a project for later, on another note he managed to get a little be further with his reinforcement ability. Nothing big but he had managed to improve the results of his self-reinforcement by a small margin, if one were to put it in terms of numbers it had improved by around three percent. Still even if the step was small it put him just that little bit closer to perfect self-reinforcement, but that would still take a long, long, time for Naruto to reach. After all you couldn't just recklessly pump prana into something add too much and whatever you were pumping the prana into would break, and when what the prana was going into was your body you wanted to be careful, very, very, careful.

The blond gave a small yawn, if one were to ask him why he had never experimented with his magecraft before his answer would have been quite simple, he hadn't needed to. The attacks that the shadow's caused were rare once or twice a every two months, or at least they used to be, they were only now ending August and entering September, already there had been eight incidents of shadows. One a month, it used to happen once or twice a every two months, hell sometimes he could go four or five months without sensing one, something was starting to happen, something big, and Naruto had no idea what it was. That was something that worried him greatly; still there was nothing he could do about it right now, so Naruto chose to shelf that line of thought. His mind turning to more recent events, like the two presences that had disappeared earlier; Naruto had little doubt they were most likely assassins sent for Tazuna, assassins that backed off seeing the odds against them. That was something that annoyed Naruto, if they had been dumb assassins they would have attacked anyway despite the odds, this time they would come prepared and ready to fight. Still it didn't matter that would happen when it happened and Naruto had no doubt in his mind that the three Jonin had sensed them as well, at least they would be ready for whatever was about to happen, or at least as ready as they could be. Assassins did have a habit of surprising people after all, then again that really should be expected as it sort of came with the job description after all.

Though Naruto was starting to wonder who exactly was after them in terms of ninja. You see assassination, like all forms of murder, was really a matter of business, more specifically haggling. Whoever the first two were, they were the opposing sides opening bid, it was kind of like say they were willing to lose those two to accomplish the mission. Then based on the results that the two got the other side would decide whether or not killing Tazuna was worth possibly loosing the extra man power. As the two had retreated the opposing side would have to up the bid considerably in order to kill Tazuna now, however Gato needed Tazuna dead so the opposite side would not just be retreating. No they would be coming back with more men and better armed then previously as well, Naruto sighed, why couldn't anything in life be easy? Then again if it was easy Naruto would have found a lot of the fun sucked out of it, the blond heard Sakura start talking about her dress again, dear Kami this was going to be a long trip.

**XXX**

Setsuna sat with her husband to her left and her parents sitting directly across from them, discussing the finer points of their plan. "Well the first thing we need to do is have that black substance analysed, we're going to need to know what it is before we can key a barrier to it. Or at least we need to find some kind of common factor." Shuhei stated looking to start the four adults off.

The other three nodded, "the real question is who can we trust with this, Tsunade already left and we all know that we can't just give this to anybody. Nor can we just announce these Shadow's to the world, it was cause mass hysteria and panic, and that's if they didn't think we were crazy." Minato put in, causing the other three members of the room to sigh.

"What if we kept this exclusively inside of the Uzumaki and Namikaze clan's?" Isane offered, Minato pursed his lips in thought.

"That could work, at the very least we can't share this with too many people and the Uzumaki would have to be told anyway because of all the Fuinjutsu work that would need to be done."

Setsuna nodded "what if we had someone from the Namikaze clan do the analysis?" The Namikaze matriarch ventured. "If I remember correctly one of the best medic ninja in Konoha hospital is a Namikaze, if Minato orders him as the Hokage and a clan head to do the analysis then he won't really have much of a choice. Not only that but it would help us keep the people inside the clans."

Mianto considered it for a second "that could work" the fourth Hokage admitted. "But we are probably going to need a whole team to work on this so who else can we get?"

The other three thought about it. "We could have some Uzumaki Fuinjutsu medic's look it over as well" Isane replied, Shuhei nodded that was a good idea. The Fuin med nin's were something that only the Uzumaki had, techniques that mixed Fuinjutsu and Iryō-jutsu, that would most likely come in handy when trying to figure out exactly what the hell those shadows were made of.

"Okay so we'll use one of the doctors from the hospital and a team of Fuin med nin, anyone else?" Minato asked, a quick flash of insight came over Setsuna's face.

"Could we have Anko help?" the red head asked. "Considering we've never come across something like this before her knowledge of poisons could come in handy. She is also very loyal so she wouldn't tell anyone about this." The other three considered it before nodding, Minato held in a smile. Anko would kill to be involved in something like this so he wouldn't even have to put up with her throwing a tantrum when they got her involved. Also while it was true that Anko was outside the Namikaze and Uzumaki clans she was also very trust worthy, despite what the councils would have you believe. So Minato found no problem with getting the snake mistress involved. He toyed with the idea of adopting the girl into the Namikaze clan before putting the idea aside. But he would come back to it later, it was a promising idea after all. Maybe he should fill out that piece of paperwork and offer it to the girl, she more than deserved it after all and she would be a great asset to the clan.

"Okay Anko's fine we can trust her" the blond said before taking a quick look at the ceiling. "Okay so is that our med nin team down then?" He asked, the other three nodded, before Setsuna pulled out a piece of paper and scrawled the names down for later.

"Next up is the barrier" Isane said. "It will probably be easier to integrate it into the barrier over Konoha then piece it together from scratch." The woman stated to which the other three nodded in support of the idea. "It would also be better if this was an Uzumaki only job, no offence to your current barrier team Minato but an Uzumaki would just do a better job of this."

Minato nodded showing he felt no hard feelings at that remark, it was true after all. Almost no one on earth could measure up to an Uzumaki Fuinjutsu master. "That still leaves who we are going to have working on it." Minato replied, right before Setsuna hit him on the shoulder, hard.

"Forgotten my speciality already have we Minato-kun?" Setsuna said far too sweetly, Minato immediately shook his head.

"O-Of course not Setsu-chan." Minato stated, looking very, very, worried. "You'll be the one leading the barrier integration team of course." Setsuna smiled and nodded, looking happy with herself, while Shuhei muttered 'whipped' discreetly. Though in all actuality there was a good reason to put Setsuna in charge of the barrier team. Even at her relatively young age Setsuna was considered to be one of the finest Kekkai Fuinjutsu (Barrier Seal Techniques) masters that the clan had, it would be a good call on having her in charge of that team. On top of that she was also Naruto's mother and as such had extra incentive to complete the barrier to the highest level possible in the shortest amount of time.

The three continued talking, thrashing out the finer details of the project. Such as how much to reveal to everyone involved and how much to pay them, no one worked for free after all.

**XXX**

****Naruto drew a shuddering breath, before rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. The Namikaze-Uzumkai pulled a watch out of his bag, three am, he stretched. The ten had set camp at about five thirty that day and then assigned watches, Naruto had already had his, three and a half hours sleep, that was all he had. It was not dreams of the knight or the feeling of the shadow's that woke him, no it was nightmares. Nightmares were the real reason Naruto never got much sleep, nightmares of what the knight had seen, nightmares about what Naruto had done, nightmares about his fears, it didn't matter what kind they were but Naruto never managed to sleep for long because of them. Fortunately Naruto had the Uzumaki healing factor on his side, otherwise he would be completely useless most days. Still even that had its limits, Naruto could up to three months without a proper night's sleep but eventually it would catch up to him and force him to sleep properly. Still on that day Naruto would sleep so deeply that he didn't dream of the knight, he wasn't woken by nightmares, Naruto welcomed that day. The blond put those thoughts aside for now and forced himself out of his warm and comfy sleeping bag, me might not be able to go back to sleep any time soon but he would not deny that the sleeping bag was quite comfy.

Still even now he was awake Naruto was brought to a small quandary, what the hell was he supposed to do now? On a normal day he would practise his magecraft but that was not an option, Naruto stopped, wasn't it? No, he corrected, he could not practise his projection magecraft, difference. The blond breathed in and out slowly "trace on" Naruto felt prana flow through his circuits. A familiar warm sensation, it was nice, when it didn't feel like it was about to melt his organs. Naruto kept his breathing steady as he began to pour prana into his body, reinforcement was one of the basics that any mage should have, wait mage? His brain instantly felt like it was burning, his prana fluctuated wildly before shutting off and Naruto fell unconscious.

**XXX**

_A little boy, red hair and eyes that looked like a mix between golden and brown. Those eyes, they were so innocent and yet filled with unmistakable pain and grief. A man tall, messy black hair, his eyes were also dark, and so very, very, empty. Like he had lost everything that __had made his life worth living, a walking corpse, which was the best way to describe the man. A home, large, and old, but it was so empty, but the boy was happy, this home was more like a coffin but to the boy it was enough, it made him happy._

_The boy was begging the man for something, something the man didn't want to give. Not out of spite, but rather, out of love, the gift that the boy asked for would cause him much pain, the man did not want that for the boy. The man refused, the boy looked sad, he walked away. The pattern repeated itself again and again, Naruto was unsure how many times the pattern repeated. It was a long time he knew that and eventually the living corpse gave in. The black haired corpse looked at the boy he called son and sighed, the gift the boy asked for would cause him much pain before the end, the corpse knew that, but he could no longer deny the boy._

"_I want you to remember one thing alright" the corpse asked, the boy nodded. "A magus walks with death always, a single misstep will kill you. If you make a single mistake in a ritual it will kill you, even your own power could kill you from the inside out." The man stated to which the boy nodded solemnly. "Very well then, today marks the first day you act as a magus, one who wields magecraft. I truly hope it is not the end of you my son, now then first you must create a magic circuit" The man went on to explain the process, Naruto was intrigued, he never had to create a magic circuit it was always just there. He was able to access it since the first time he had found out how. Was this why his power was so low in comparison to the knight's? Because he hadn't activated his magic circuits so he was just channelling prana through an incomplete circuit, that theory certainly had some merit to it. Slowly the dream faded and Naruto found himself waking up._

**XXX**

Naruto felt his eyes open slowly, that had been, enlightening. But he was concerned, the visions they were coming more frequently now, at the same time the activity of the shadows was picking up? No way in hell was that a coincidence, they had some form or relationship with each other, still now he knew what he needed to open up his magic circuits, not like he was doing now, but truly open them up.

Naruto looks at the watch, four am, the visions had taken an hour, it didn't matter, he would create his circuit now. They wouldn't be moving till seven, Kakashi had told them that last night, Naruto had time. According to the dream creating his magic circuit would take the better part of two hours, a single mistake would mean death, Naruto smiled, he liked his odds. One thing many would have to understand about Namikaze-Uzumaki Naruto was that he loved a challenge, more importantly the greater the risk the more fun he felt it would be to try it out, Naruto was a man in love with gambling his own life against death.Still the blond had no intention of throwing his life away for no reason, there was a difference between a gamble and suicide after all.

"Trace on" the words alone mean nothing, to anyone else they would be nonsensical, meaningless, useless,unneeded, there were many words one could use to describe them. To Naruto they were the words that connected him, from this point onward Namikaze-Uzumaki Naruto is not human, his body was merely a shell being used to channel the free flowing prana of the planet, mana. His body felt like it was melting, he was being destroyed from his finger tips, no, he was being filled from them, the sensation was so great that it was replacing what would be there normally. His eyes close, the unknown sixth element, or the imaginary sixth element Ether, begins to close in over Naruto's vision, his eyes close. A self-defence mechanism of his body to avoid them being destroyed by something a human mind and body is unable to comprehend. The air freezes, that is not a metaphor, the air literally freezes, the mana in the air is frozen, the only person permitted to breathe in this place in Namikaze-Uzumaki Naruto.

The blond can feel the blood pounding in his ears, it blocks out all other sound, even the people in the camp are frozen, they feel like if they move then, they will die. The world is frozen, Naruto breathes in, it defies the natural order, but that is fine, after all magecraft was made to defy the natural order. Naruto began to pull more mana into himself, it felt like an iron rod of molten metal was inserted into his spine as pure prana coursed through him, only two outcomes are possible. The first outcome, he succeeds in truly creating a magic circuit for himself, the second outcome, he dies as something that is not human, something that defies the natural laws. No, either succeeds or fail Namikaze-Uzumaki Naruto will cease to be human, so all that was left was living and dying.

He breathed in again, defying the mana still frozen in the air, his lungs are burning, his organs are melting, it's too much, the pain is unbearable, pure prana rages inside his body. Namikaze-Uzumaki Naruto cannot withstand this pain, his death is a foregone conclusion, he doesn't care and there is only one place he needs to reach. The flowing power fills him to capacity in an instant. It breaks, the overflowing prana cannot be controlled, magical energy ten times the capacity of the circuit breaks it's foundations trying to escape, the prana rages, Naruto doesn't care, it will work, the limit can be surpassed, just so long as he can push through the darkness. The limitation he had originally was caused only by himself, the power he had before was a limit imposed by Namikaze-Uzumaki Naruto, so he must be able to break through it, after all that limit should have never existed to begin with, from the very beginning it was self imposed.

His organs feel like they are melting, his head is splitting open from the pain, his back, the iron rod gnaws at his spine, the pain increases tenfold, Naruto ignores it, the limit can be broken. Prana ten times the capacity of the circuit breaks it's foundations trying to escape- Naruto simply uses a hundred circuits to take in one thousand times the capacity, the pain increases again, his bones are being ground to dust, splitting apart, his blood vessels are rupturing splitting open, he ignores the pain. Naruto pushes the prana further and in that moment, everything breaks and is reformed. The pain subsides, the prana recedes and Naruto is left with his true magic circuit, he can feel them, all twenty seven of them. Namikaze-Uzumaki Naruto cannot yet make use of all of them, but he can feel them, the self imposed limit, the darkness that he believed to be a wall is gone. Naruto slowly channels prana through the new circuit and smiles, Namikaze-Uzumaki Naruto used to house ten units of prana, now he houses twenty units. Using only two if his twenty seven circuits, the others, when he learns to access them should be able to hold a similar number to the first two. He cuts the flow of prana through the circuits, and allowed himself to fall back, his sleeping bag was covered in sweat, Naruto didn't care, that had been one hell of a morning, he checked the watch, and it wasn't six am yet.

**XXX**

Narurto took a deep breath. They had been out on the road for the last week and three days, they should be arriving at Nami, or at least the dock that would take them to Nami, soon. Naruto had one prayer answered on the trip, after day one Sakura no longer talked about her new dress, he was thankful for that. What he wasn't thankful for was the fact she now asked Sasuke out on a date every few minutes, it was like he had just swapped one problem for another, he sighed, it was times like this Naruto was sure there was a higher power watching over the world; and at some point in the past he must have offended it greatly. The blond sighed again, as he heard Sakura open her mouth, what did he ever do to deserve this?

The blond tuned the pinkette out. It was harder than it sounded, before turning his attention to what he had learned over the last week. First and foremost was the fact that Tazuna had a family, this would make their job slightly harder as no doubt they would have to be protected as well. The second was something that Naruto personally was excited about, he now had enough prana to make use of that demonic sword, Caladbolg, still having enough prana to make use of the sword and being able to use it well were too different things, after all even if the blades he created allowed him to use them like their masters could on instinct, Naruto would always be able to perform better with blades he knew. According to what Naruto knew Kanshou and Bakuya were C- rank noble phantasms, Caladbolg was a B rank noble phantasm, well technically the name of the sword was Caladbolg II. It seemed the knight had altered the original sword to fit his uses better, e.g. using Caladbolg as a broken phantasm. Naruto knew he was only make replications of the weapons, as such they degraded by a rank when he created them, however this only happened to noble phantasms. Naruto could project a normal sword perfectly, but no human can completely grasp the intricacies behind a noble phantasm, so it was only natural that they were degraded by a rank. That being said it was possible to raise the weapons rank back to what it should be, by turning the noble phantasm into a broken phantasm. Naruto kept that little piece of information in the back of his head. He would have to test the power out one day, when no one was around. Still he could make use of Caladbolg now, he also worked out the prana cost for B ranked noble phantasms, Kanshou and Bakuya cost him three units of prana to create, Caladbolg on the other hand cost ten units of prana to create, Naruto would have to be careful with it. After all he would be down to half his reserves after he created the blade, well half reserves unless he wanted to run the risk of killing himself, death by prana overload was not a nice way to go, Naruto should know, he had seen magi that had died from it in the knight's memories after all.

The blond was brought out of his thoughts as the boat came into view. He reached inside himself. The hammer was cocked, ready to come down. When it did prana would flood his circuits, why was he readying himself so early one might ask, well it was quite simple. The best time to strike against them would be when, they were getting out of the boat, it would take them time to regain their formation after all, that and the Genin would be distracted by the unfamiliar land. He couldn't feel any presences but that would be where he would attack if he was the enemy leader. Even if it was a rather basic strategy, still no one ever said murder had to be fancy after all. Effective, yes, fancy, no, not that it really matters to the person you would be killing though, after all at the end of the day they will be a corpse who's life blood is flowing out on the floor. Naruto took a closer look at the boat, thank Kami, it could actually fit all ten of them, Naruto did not like the idea of splitting up, that was like asking someone to kill you.

"Ah, look the boat" Sakura stated, Naruto fought the urge to face palm, he fought it hard. In the end his iron will trumped the urge. 'No shit Sherlock' he settled for using the term in his head, the last thing he wanted, or needed, right now was shouting, well more shouting anyway Sakura's voice sounded like shouting all the time after all.

Sasuke looked over the medium sized boat quickly "one or two trips?" The black haired Uchiha asked.

"One" Asuma replied sternly, it seemed he figured the same thing Naruto did. That was good. Naruto would have hated to have an incompetent Jonin sensei. Not that an incompetent person should be able to make Jonin, but after meeting Konohamaru's personal trainer Ebisu Naruto was unsure.

"One" Yugao and Kakashi agreed, before the purple haired ANBU chose to expand on the choice. "You see there are three dangerous times when you're on transport. The first is actually boarding, because you will be slightly disorganised and as such slightly easier to strike at. The second is departure, if someone wants to sneak on then that is the best time to do so since most of the time your attention would be split so many ways that you wouldn't be able to find them, the final time is when you are disembarking. Since you're in a new place you probably won't know the lay of the land too well and that will cause you to miss things. Also it will take time for your formations to be as effective as they were before due to the break, regardless of how short it was, this is the best time for an enemy to strike. By splitting up we would compound that risk, but since they have enough room on the boat it's not a problem" Yugao finished smiling at Sakura who nodded.

Naruto threw a quick look at Kushina, who had her head buried in a Fuinjutsu book. Not that it was surprising for him, when they were younger Kushina could quite often be found with her head in a Fuinjutsu book. She did indeed hate reading but Fuinjutsu was something she enjoyed enough that she could put that aside, Naruto debated talking to the red head so she would focus more on their surroundings but discarded the thought, he would do that when they were about to land.

It didn't take the ten long to cram themselves onto the boat. It was a very quiet journey though, the driver telling them all not to talk, he was scared of being found by Gato. In hind sight the Jonin really should have told the other Genin about this by now, it was a real oversight on their part collectively. The boat ride was quick and quiet, less than twenty minutes all told. To Naruto it was quick and thankfully quiet, anyone who had to spend a week, or more, on the road with Sakura quickly developed a health respect for the term 'silence is golden'. 'True silence is golden' Naruto mused to himself, before looking back at Sakura, more specifically her mouth, 'but duct tape is silver.'

The blond stopped his musing as they re-assumed the formation, both Kushina and he up front as scouts, though this time they were joined by Kakashi, it seemed the Jonin sensei felt that if an attack were to come it would come around now. A pulse, this feeling inside his chest, like a friend long forgotten, like a despised enemy long dead. The two feelings mingled, what was it? Why did he feel like someone, someone he knew was here, someone who was both one of his greatest allies and worst enemies. This feeling that stirred his soul, he was a being made for war after all, his body was truly made out of blades. His desire for battle with this person increased, he wanted to face them, he wanted to face them more than anything else.

Shikamaru twisted, a kunai leaving his hand and entering the bushes. The three Jonin and six Genin stiffened. Waiting for what they thought would be an attack from the woodland. Nothing happened, Naruto let out a breath he didn't know he was holding, "why did you do that?" Sakura asked, Shikamaru shrugged.

"Thought someone was there" the lazy genius admitted before walking over to the bushes to retrieve his kunai, albeit he did so slowly. The pineapple haired lazy genius parted the bushes slowly, revealing a white rabbit.

"You confused a person with a rabbit?" Sasuke asked in an amused tone, Shikamaru shrugged.

Choji looked at the rabbit before noticing something. "Shika" the big boned boy asked. "Why is the rabbit white? Its summer shouldn't its coat have turned brown by now." The remainder of the group took that in for a second and for Naruto the world seemed to slow down. That feeling doubled, it felt like someone he should know was close by and he should seek them out. A small whistling met his ears.

"GET DOWN!" The three Jonin yelled in tandem, the Genin, well most of them, hit the floor, the Jonin tackled Tazuna down. Naruto jumped, "trace on" prana flooded his circuits, a warm feeling suffusing his body as he jumped towards Kushina. The blond could feel prana suffusing his body as he reinforced it, his chakra rushed to his limbs making them even stronger. The gigantic blade went under his legs, he didn't care, his target was not the blades owner. The twin wakizashi came free from their sheaths, cutting across the front of his body, just in time to stop the twin kunai aimed for Kushina's neck. The blond landed lightly on the ground and looked at his opponent. Long black hair, tied into a pony tail, but leaving two strands to frame his face. Light green pants and shit, a long blue jacket that fell to the back of his knees. The boy had a very feminine face and dark brown eyes, but the murderous intent behind them was unmistakable.

"Ah, such a shame, you blocked it." The ninja in blue stated, his tone right now is like he was talking to an old friend, but there was absolutely no mistaking the murderous intent in his words or his _demeanour._

_"Guess so" Naruto shot back, letting the tightness in his body loosen, this was going to be one hell of a fight. The man in blue smiled, it seemed that even he appreciated some dry humour._

Naruto threw a quick look at the other Genin, Shikamaru, Sasuke, Choji and Sakura were engaging four ninja that whoever used the blade had brought with him, Naruto flicked his vision to the man. Fuck, Momochi Zabuza, if his memory served him right the man was a missing ninja of Kiri these days, A rank too. He was fighting Kakashi at the moment, his eyes flicked to Yugao and Asuma, fighting a man with a glowing yellow sword, Raijin no Ken, sword of the Nidaime Hokage, stolen by the traitor Rokushō Aoi, it didn't look like the traitor had joined another village yet either, considering he was still wearing his old Konoha Hitai-ate, granted it did have a slash through the leaf symbol. Naruto felt the feeling of familiarity as he looked at the boy in front of him. Kushina stepped by beside him. Naruto's arm came out in front of her. "Go help the other's, I can hold him until you get back." It was a command, not a choice. The red head gave him a quick searching look.

"Don't die" Kushina muttered before turning back to help the others, the teen in the blue jacket let her leave.

"Thanks for that" the teen in blue shrugged to show it was nothing before looking closely at the blond.

"So care to tell me who you are?" He asked, Naruto nodded his head, he was fine with that.

"Name's Nami-" his vision went white, someone who was but wasn't the boy in front of him. A promise made by a Naruto who was not Naruto, what was the promise? Why was it important? The words came back to him, the words of the knight, the words of the other him.

_~ I Am The Bone Of My Sword ~_

_~ Steel Is My Body And Fire Is My Blood ~_

_~ I Have Created Over A Thousand Blades ~_

_~ Unknown To Death ~_

_~ Nor Known To Life ~_

_~ Have Withstood Pain To Create Many Weapons ~_

_~ Yet, Those Hands Will Never Hold Anything ~_

_~ So As I Pray ~_

_~ Unlimited Blade Works ~_

The words stopped and Naruto smiled at the teen in front of him, "call me Archer" Naruto stated. He had no idea why he would call himself that but it just felt right, the teen in blue shrugged. "And who would you be?" Naruto asked in return, the boy shrugged and Naruto dove to the side. The air next to his face split and in the blue wearing teens hand is a bloody red lance. Naruto's senses immediately go out using his structural grasping and he feels his mouth go dry, Gae Bolg, the cursed lance. A weapon with the ability to reverse cause and effect, the moment that lance is thrust and has it's true name called it is instantly a fatal blow, cause and effect will reverse themselves at that moment. Normally if one to thrust a lance into someone's heart it would be a matter of, the lance was thrust and thus the heart was pierced. The Gae Bolg reverses that, the moment that demonic lance is thrust your heart is already pierced, the action of striking comes later merely to prove the fact you are dead to the rest of the world. The demonic lance that never misses the heart. A cursed noble phantasm that can never be avoided and will attack the enemy even if it misses, that out manurers any and all evasions, that is Gae Bolg. There truly is no way for one to survive once they have been targeted by that demonic lance.

**(Play Fate/Stay Night OST Clashing Souls)**

Naruto can only hope that the teen is new to using this noble phantasm. It had taken him two years to understand what a noble phantasm even was, let alone how to use one, he just hoped that the teen in blue didn't yet know how to use that demonic lance. The blond stood, he didn't dare look back to see how the others were doing, the moment that he did that, his heart would be pierced, the blond had no doubt about that. The teen in blue smiles at the fact his blow had been dodged, "Oh, you actually dodged that? Nice, well if were giving fake names I guess you can call me Lancer." The teen stated, Naruto nodded, "now then shall we?" Lancer asked, Naruto nodded again, his wakizashi's retuning to their sheaths, he was going to need something a little bigger for this.

The two stood as still as statues, there were five meters between the two of them. Lancers spear was two meters long, but against the blue clad teen Naruto felt like the remaining three meters didn't even matter. Naruto's right hand opened and gripped the handle of the weapon that had yet to exist, the white piandao, Kanshou, settled into his open hand like an extension of his limbs. The teen in blue smiles, "That's good. That's the way to go, I don't mind people who are quick on the uptake." he stated, his eyes resembling a beasts. "But why did you call yourself Archer? You seem a little more like a Saber to me." The teen stated to which Naruto shrugged.

"Does it really matter?" He asked "we're both using fake names anyway, does it really matter what we call ourselves?"

The teen in blue considered it for a second before shaking his head "I guess not" Lancer answered, he didn't show a single opening. "Now then why don't we get started?" the blue clad teen asked, his casual demeanour gone and now replaced by murderous intent.

In response Naruto is silent, as if awaiting the signal to begin his attack. When one considers it, it becomes strange, after all right now red and blue are confronting each other. The two coloured counterfeit knights watch each other closely, waiting for an opening to strike the first, and hopefully decisive, blow. This will not turn into a battle of Ninjutsu or Genjutsu, the moment Naruto would try to use either one of them he would quickly find the cursed lance embedded in his heart. But the opposite is also true the instant that Lancer attempts either Ninjutsu or Genjutsu Naruto's sword will split his skull. No this battle will be decided purely by their fighting skill with their chosen weapons. "Now I know we just met and even though I would prefer not to fight we ain't got a choice, considering you called yourself Archer I'm guessing you have a bow on you right? I am at least nice enough to allow you time to get it out, go on won't you, Archer?" The teen in blue asks, it's not a false idea either, no Lancer will give Naruto enough time to take his bow out, that does not mean that Naruto wishes to use it however.

Naruto does not respond, he has nothing left to say to an enemy he has to defeat. "Heh" he lets out a small chuckle, neither his vision nor stance falter in the slightest. He kicks off the ground piandao in hand, the red bullet launches. "IDIOT!" Lancer declares, the demonic lance is thrust to meet the red swordsmen. The blade comes up, slamming into the lance to deflect it to the side. The high speed thrust is repelled by the short sword. Naruto twists and grunts, the thrust may not have dealt him any damage but it did stop his charge, it seems his enemy won't even let him get within two meters, the range of the spear. After all for a long weapon distance is always preferred and for Lancer who has a weapon almost two meters long, he only has the need to attack when the enemy enters his range. Thrusting at an approaching opponent is far easier than attacking them yourself after all. But even then Lance moves forward, preventing Naruto's charge before it can even really begin.

The two weapons clash again, torrent and swirling vigour, Lancer steps forward and Naruto confronts him by also stepping forward. Kanshou spun, each blow causing sparks at it's impact point, still Lancer advances, starting to force Naruto back. "Gah" the blond grunts, deflecting a particularly hard blow. It's suicidal to close in to an enemy with such a long weapon. A spear man's tactic is to stay back and use their long range to defeat an enemy in battle. So Lancer who is advancing unchecked, he does not have a chance of winning. But that's only if you go by the book. Lancer shows no vulnerability as he strikes, for the throat forehead, shoulder and heart. The thrusts were beginning to get to the point where even the after images were beginning to blur. Each attack begins to push Naruto back, each attack if it lands could be fatal, every last one could be a final blow.

But it wasn't like Naruto didn't have experience fighting things faster than he was. As such no ordinary attack can be a final blow. The sword and the spear clash again, up, right, down, left, sparks fly, the two look beautiful, caught in a dance of life and death. Neither can spare a moment to check on their companions, the moment their concentration wavers for even a second, will be the moment that they die. Naruto pushes against the lance, forcing it high, before closing in on the blue knight.

Based on the shape alone one would think that the main attack of a spear or a lance is in thrusts, but that is wrong. But the basic strength of a lance is in swings, this is because a wide swing using its long range does not allow the enemy to dodge by stepping back. A partial retreat does not allow escape and an attempt to counter attack will only result in a slashed stomach. But simply going forward would result in a smashed rib or broken arm from the shaft of the weapon. Naruto and Lancer are similarly built, Lancer being slightly taller and Naruto being slightly stronger. But on top of that for Naruto, who was not wearing any heavy armour has yet to be struck. Sure a thrust you can barely see coming at you is certainly scary but once you know the trajectory of the thrust it can be parried, such as Naruto just did, smashing Kanshou against the shaft to force the stab off course. Now that Lancer is in close Naruto has a chance, then like a nightmare it happened, Lancer retreated slightly and thrust the lance. This thrust far surpassing the previous ones in both speed and power, Kanshou came up and knocked the stab off course, the demonic lance still managing to knick the side of Naruto's face, breaking the skin and forming a small line of blood down his cheek. The red knight smiles, now this was what he was talking about.

The thrusts come in harder and faster, Naruto grits his teeth and fends them off with Kanshou, this wasn't good. If these thrusts kept increasing in both speed and power then it would become a finishing blow even for him. Worse he can't find even a single opening in Lancers stance to take advantage off. This was quickly turning into the fight of his life. Naruto was the one that underestimated Lancer, the weapon he carries is a noble phantasm, a cursed weapon, for a weapon like that. There are no general rules about lances. Naruto retreats slightly and Lancer uses that opening to launch an even more powerful attack. The spear is stabbed forward, Lancers fierce attack becomes a repetition of that action. But the blows themselves, there form is god like.

The other Genin had already finished their opponents and come back to help and yet none of them have. Not because they are scared, no that emotion was certainly there but it was not the reason for their inactivity. No, frankly they are captivated by the battle unfolding before them. The battle between the counterfeit knights of red and blue is burned into their vision, a sight they are all sure they will remember long after they have died and gone to hell, it was a spectacle that was haunting in its glory.

The lance and the sword connect again and sparks dance through the air. A loud crash and Kanshou flies from Naruto's hand, the Genin's eyes widen in horror he is about to die, nothing can change that now, Namikaze-Uzumaki Naruto is about to die. That was Lancer's technique, a straight thrust that turned into a sweep to the wrist done in such a way that even if he had seen it coming Naruto would have been unable to dodge. There is truly no fully effective way of parrying a lance with a sword, a strong rebuff can result in a stronger counter attack and a weak rebuff won't work at all. The most important part of a swordsmen defeating a lance wielding opponent is doing so when the lance user is at the wrong range.

Lancer stops, "idiot" Lancer mutters looking at Naruto, who was smiling at the blue clad teen, both of them had sweat pouring off their bodies. The blue clad teen pulls back, he must intend to end the fight in a single blow. The stares of the firmly placed Lancer and swordless Naruto clash. In that instant the lance is thrust, forehead, neck, heart, any of the three attacks could be called a fatal blow! But the flash that was too fast to see was repelled by a pair of shining blades. Like before Kanshou is settled in Naruto's right hand, the biggest difference now is that the black blade of Bakuya was in his left, Lancer looked annoyed. "Two swords huh" the blue teen looked both annoyed that he had been cheated of his kill and overjoyed that the battle could continue.

Kushina's eyes widened, she knew those swords. The twin married swords that Naruto used to kill the shadow, were now firmly in her friends grasp. "Heh, an Archer trying to be a swordsmen?" Lancer mocked before charging again, the demonic lance met the twin blades in a flash of light. As if he wants to finish the fight quickly Lancer pushes himself to move faster and faster. Naruto defends, defiance written on his face. His cold blue eyes say he will no longer retreat, no he will only advance from this point onward. The sounds of clashing weapons are like the sounds of well orchestrated music. The weapons clash against each other and the clashes increase, sparks flying through the air like falling fireflies, an increase in rhythm without pause. The battle between the two is like a vacuum, anything that enters the space around the two counterfeit knights will be cut to pieces!

It reality it only lasts an instant, but for the on looking Genin and even Yugao and Asuma it seems to last for an eternity. Lancer attempts to push back Naruto, while Naruto advances using his swords as a shield. The weapons clash one last time and Lancer jumps back, disengaging his enemy. "Three times" Lancer mutters, obviously annoyed. "I've disarmed you three times and you always have more." Is it irritation, no, it's more like confusion. The blue knight cannot understand how his red counterpart keeps recovering his weapons.

"Where did all your energy go Lancer?" Naruto taunted, the blue knight shrugged.

"Oh quiet you damned cheater" the knight replied to his counterpart. "Okay I'll bite who are you really, I've never seen you in the bingo book before and with skills like yours you should be in there." Lancer stated, Naruto shrugged.

"Like I said earlier, just call me Archer, and while we're on the subject of the bingo book you should be in there as well considering your level of skill." Naruto stated, Lancer shrugged as if to say 'what can you do?'

In that instant Lancers vast amount of murderous intent makes the Genin around him forget to breathe. It's a different stance from before, a stance Lancer will only show an enemy he has sworn to kill with his own hands. The lance's tip is lowered to the ground, only his stare pierces Naruto. "In that case you can face my finishing blow!" Naruto mouth go's dry, the mana in the air freezes, the next attack will be a fatal blow. The demonic lance is aimed at its target and Naruto discards his swords, he will have to try something he wasn't sure he could do. At the very least he does not have the prana for it, but since he will die if he doesn't Naruto will at least give it a try. Nothing can stop this clash, unless.

"We're leaving!" the yell came across the ground, Zabuza was fleeing into the wood's Lancer took one last look at Naruto before retreating also, the message between the two was clear though, they would finish this later, Naruto let Kanshou and Bakuya fade before looking back at his companions, exhaustion over took him.

"Somebody catch me please." was his last statement before falling unconscious, Kushina grabbing his form before it hit the ground.

Shikamaru was the first to speak "what, what the hell was that?"

The others had no answer for the lazy genius, the fight wasn't above the level of high chunin but the way the two were fighting. It was mesmerising, captivating, enticing, the memories of that battle would be forever carved in the Genin's minds. Asuma picked Kakashi up and placed the silver haired Jonin over his shoulder. "Tazuna-san is your house close by?" the chain smoker asked, the still shell shocked bridge builder nodded.

"Y-Yes it's about fifteen minutes away" the old man clarified, the ninja nodded and walked in the direction Tazuna indicated.

"Kushina did you know anything about that?" Choji asked the red head, as he carried the unconscious blond. Kushina shook her head, well she did know quite a bit about it actually but nothing she was willing to share.

"No Naruto never told me anything about being able to fight like that, he never told anyone as a matter of fact." The red head admitted, causing Shikamaru's eyes to narrow.

"You're telling me no one knew he was that good?" Shikamaru asked, Kushina shook her head.

"No, Naruto has been shutting us out for years now, he barely talks to anyone inside the clan and no one outside of it. To be honest he's become a complete enigma to both the Namikaze and Uzumaki sides, hell his own mother and father don't even know much about him any more." Kushina stated, Shikamaru paused in thought.

"So you are telling me no one had any idea he was that good. But that should be impossible someone had to teach Naruto for him to have learned that much." The lazy genius stated, Yugao dropped back to the group and nodded at Shikamaru's statement.

"And I want to meet just who that someone is" the purple haired swordswoman declared, Kushina looked up at the former ANBU in surprise.

"Naruto was really that good you want him to tell you who taught him?" The red head inquired, she knew the blond was good, far beyond any Genin when it came to the art of Kenjutsu but was he really that good?

"No" Yugao admitted shaking her head. "Naruto is an extremely talented swordsman, I wont deny that, but I want to meet his teacher so I can punch them in the face for convincing him that fighting like that was okay." The purple haired woman stated, causing Choji to look at her strangely.

"Why would you do that Yugao-sensei?" The big boned boy asked, genuinely confused by his sensei's actions.

The Genin could hear Yugao's teeth as they ground together. "Because it's suicidal" she stated getting confused looks, the purple haired former ANBU forced herself to calm down. "The style Naruto used relied on predicting attacks." She clarified, Kushina looked at her sensei like she had lost her mind.

"What's so bad about that?" The red head inquired "a lot of Kenjutsu styles amongst the Uzumaki do that as well."

Yugao shook her head. "That's true but Naruto's was on a different level to them, he was using false openings to lure the enemy into attacking the points that he wanted. The problem was that every opening he left would have been a fatal strike if he didn't block or dodge. That Kushina is why I want to hit whoever was reckless enough to teach him that style, a single mistake and Naruto will die, I can't condone that." Yugao finished, Kushina nodded, that was something else Setsuna and she would have to look into, who exactly was teaching Naruto his skills?

Shikamaru just looked at the unconscious blond, his mind quickly finding the parts that didn't match up. He would get to the bottom of this, it would be troublesome, of that he was sure, but something wasn't right here and Shikamaru wanted to know what.

**XXX**

_Naruto could see a dream, the knight was younger this time, still just a boy. It was a story from so long ago history has forgotten it._

_A night with a beautiful moon, the boy wasn't doing anything, the idea of the knight didn't even exist yet. He was simply watching the moon, with the living corpse he called a father. It was winter, but it wasn't cold and so the two had no need of a heater or blankets to keep themselves warm. Though the corridor was a little chilly, just a little though, it was the perfect knight to watch the pale white moon._

_It seemed like the man who the boy called father didn't leave the house much any more. He didn't go outside and just carelessly lazed about inside. Naruto already knew what this meant, the man had always seemed like a living corpse to him, now the man knows his death is close. It seems the living corpse will finally die, Naruto hopes the man will find his peace in whatever lies after death, considering the way the man looks he might even consider his death to be a blessing._

"_You know when I was younger I wanted to be a superhero." The living corpse stated, the man who was already a superhero in the eyes of the boy said that like he was yearning for it more than anything else in the world._

"_What do you mean wanted to!? Did you give up?" The boy asked, a small amount of anger alive in his tone. It seems that the boy didn't want the man to say he had given up on his dream, after all, to the boy that man really was a superhero. The living corpse laughs apologetically before he looked up at the clear night sky. It seemed he was trying to give the boy some kind of lesson, Naruto realised it then, it would be the man's last lesson to the boy, he was going to die, not within the next few days or the next few weeks, but rather, in the next few hours. The man knew his time was at hand and was trying, desperately trying, to give the boy some last minute advice, no matter how clumsy he was at giving it, Naruto revised his opinion of the walking corpse, he really was a great father._

"_Yes, unfortunately. Being a hero is a time limiting thing, and it becomes hard to call yourself that when you grow up. I wish I had found that out earlier." The boy agreed with the man, Naruto knew it wasn't because he understood. No rather the boy believed it had to be true, simply because it was the man who had said so._

"_I see the I guess it couldn't be helped" The boy said sadly._

_The man nodded "Yeah. It really couldn't be helped." Naruto saw the fire in the boys eyes, was this it? Was this the turning point in the boys life?_

"_Yeah it can't be helped so I'll take your place" the boy said proudly. "It's impossible for you because you're an adult, but it should be alright for me. So please, let me take your dream."_

_The words 'I'll make it come true' went unsaid due to the man's laughter. Before he smiled down at the child beside him, his face said he already knew, he didn't even need to hear the rest._

_He breathed in deeply still smiling down at his son, before turning back to the pure white moon. "Yeah- I'm relieved" his eyes closed and the walking corpses life ended. He looked so peaceful that the boy didn't disturb him, it seemed as if he believed that he would wake up again in the morning. The boy had to know somewhere though that he was just deluding himself, after all, there were tears running down his cheeks as he looked at the peaceful corpse of the man he called father. There were no sounds from the garden, just tears slipping silently down the boys face, the pure white moon looked down at the scene, something that looked as if it would last an eternity. The boy did not cry out, but his tears did not stop until the light of the dawn was visible in the sky._

_Naruto understood, this was the beginning of the knight, the place where he gained his purpose. But what he had seen of the knights life it seemed that the dream that both he and his father pursued as nothing but a dream, an ever distant utopia. Naruto had figured out long ago that these were memories, nothing he said or did here would change anything. Despite that the blond placed his arms around the child, the man, the child, the knight, they all failed to make their dream a reality. Naruto looked at the boy who couldn't feel his arms, tears still spilling down his face. "You both didn't succeed" the blond ninja stated. "But that's fine, because I will finish what all three of you started, I wont tell you that I can succeed because I will probably fail but, I will purse your dream in your place. I will look for that ever distant utopia." The boy couldn't hear him and Naruto knew he couldn't affect a single thing in this world, but he didn't let go of the child until his tears had stopped, the ninja though he didn't notice a tear making it's way down his own cheek as well._

**Wrought Iron Hero Chapter 4- End.**

Okay the only thing I wanted to put down here was about Naruto's magic circuit. Before he knew how to turn it on but not how to make one, thus as he had never constructed one before Naruto was using an incomplete circuit. Now that he has formed his own real magic circuit he can feel each on his circuits in truth, all twenty seven of them. Though he does not know how to make use of all of them yet. Also up his magical energy is still a D rank, don't get me wrong he has more units of prana now (20 to his original 10) but that is not enough to get him out of the D ranking, or even get him to D+, yet anyway.

Kinunatzs-

I have no idea on what the real idea is for how much chakra each person has but this is the way I have it in my head.

E- Civilian

D- Genin

C- Low Chunin to Mid Chunin

B- High Chunin to Low Jonin

A- Mid to high Jonin

S- Kage level

SS- Uchiha Madara, other characters at that level.

Naruto's golden rule is rank B as in cannon Jiraiya often took his money and left him broke, that counts as financial trouble something that someone with golden rule A should never encounter. That being said as he is B ranked he can easily get his money back if he goes gambling, so I do feel giving him B rank is justified.

Kushina will not be Saber.

Memories of EMIYA is a stretch, its more along the lines of he sees what EMIYA has done and tries to replicate it. Naruto did know that prana if used incorrectly could kill him so until recently he hadn't tried experimenting. Mostly because he was content with Kanshou and Bakuya but now things are starting to pick up he's playing around with the abilities a little more to try and put the odds in his favour.

As for Mana vs Magical Energy I'm sticking with magical energy as that is what it's called in game/novel/whatever you want to call it.

And sorry but resistance does not affect Ninjutsu, simply because Ninjutsu uses chakra to sustain itself while magecraft uses prana. Because the energy sources are different the resistance value is not carried over.


	5. Chapter 5

**Wrought Iron Hero**

**Chapter Five: Archer**

Author's note-

Yo how's everybody doing? Look not really much to say here except that I did gloss over a fair bit of the Wave mission this chapter, that being said it is the Wave mission. You've seen it a hundred times before anyway.

At any rate I think that since I'm using a lot of Fate/Stay Night mechanics, I assume most readers of Naurto have no idea how they work, I am now putting in a description of most Fate/Stay Night terms at the bottom of the story. So if I still have any people that read this and have no idea about Fate/Stay Night you might want to scroll down to the bottom of this chapter just so you can understand some of the terminology. This particular chapter also lists all the things I've talked about in previous chapters, but most of the time it will just list what I talked about in the chapter that I place the note in. Also I plan to make the notes as comprehensive as I can so they are kind of long.

Thank my BETA Zimbolical and go read his story 'The Grey Soldier' in the Infinite Stratos section, it's awesome, enjoy the chapter.

**Story Start-**

_Naruto looked around, he could see the dream around him, just like always. The memories of the man who was set up as a hero. A story of the knight who was understood by no one. To Naruto it was a simple story, in short, there was something wrong with him. He had some power and some ambition. But he used his powers at the wrong places from beginning to end, and he died as a result. But that was only natural after all, power only exists to grant your own wishes, compassion for others is a good thing but no one can grow if they are endlessly saved by another. The reason the world is balanced is that in some form or another everything eventually comes back to you. Be it good or bad, or right or wrong, everything will eventually come full circle, whether the receiver liked it or not was another matter altogether._

_One gets energy because their actions circle around to create more energy, which was just the way the world worked. But not having that means never being replenished. For example, of one lives for others and not for oneself, Naruto was sure they would run out of power right away. If there were such a thing as disposable money then that is what it would be like. It would be used by strangers and it would only disappear after it had been used. It's easy to take advantage of and that it would be used is already a given. That is why in the end...the knight saw many betrayals, and his life was ended by 'someone' he saved._

_It made Naruto made. He wanted to question the knight as to 'why?' he did that. He worked so hard, put in great effort even though he was more or less an ordinary human being, and he managed a miracle with his own blood. His compensation was betrayal and death. It's not even a joke, but he died satisfied. Naruto had no intention of commenting on the knights life more than he had to, after all he knights choices were his own, just as Naruto's were, but the blond can never accept that one thing. That was the impression Naruto usually got from this particular dream about the knight, he usually woke up here, but...it seems the dream continues today._

_The knight was standing in hell, which was the only way Naruto could describe it. It was the scene of some natural disaster, not the result of human conflict. The knight looked to the sky and spoke._

"_Let me make a contract. I shall give you my life after my death. But I would like the compensation now."_

_The knight weaved the words of the contract._

_Yes the knight made a contract with something as mysterious and vague as the world._

_After that he changed as if possessed by something and saved people that could not normally be saved. Ah, so this must be how he became a hero. Seeing it this way, it's nothing much. Naruto would have been willing to bet that the people the knight saved were not even in the hundreds. The knight probably couldn't really be called a hero with such small numbers. That being said the number isn't important. The qualification of a hero, one who surpasses humans, is to be able to save those that are fated to die. It is an alteration of fate, not something that should be attempted lightly by any means. It does not really matter if the people call the knight a hero, because the world itself, Gaia, well recognise him as one based on that one fact alone. As long as he averted the disaster that could not be changed, however small in scope the disaster was._

_No that was wrong. The knight's words of contract, Naruto understood them now. The world would obtain a hero or heroic spirit in compensation for the miracle that the knight was granted. He became a hero and saved those that could not otherwise have been saved. As a result the knight became a 'heroic spirit' after he died, he was probably repeating what he was doing before he died._

_Being a "Servant"._

_Naruto guessed that compensation for that miracle is to become a convenient disposable tool that will fight for others even after one dies._

_Heroic Spirit, what a misleading term. Those words make it sound like something good and pure, which could not be further from the truth. The so called Heroic Spirits, superior spirits chosen to be the guardians of humanity. Or at least that is how they appear to be romanticised by the very people they protect. The reality of the matter is different, more different than most humans are capable of imagining._

_In short Heroic Spirits have no free will._

_The Heroic Spirits are the guardians of humanity. Those guardians do not have free will and are instead treated as 'powers'. They are called fourth to protect the world only when factors appear that could destroy it. They are the weapons destroy these factors. The so called guardians are summoned into every age. They then eliminate these factors, and then disappear from this world. Naruto personally would have hated an existence like that but it appeared that the knight was prepared to take on that role, though Naruto suspected that he regretted it in the end._

_No, considering the way the knight was and the ideals that he held he may have even wished for it. It would have been perfect to him if he could save people even after he died, after all to the knight the very act of saving others was a reward in and of itself. Even though he did not have the power to save everyone around him when he was alive Naruto suspected that the knight believed he could avert every tragedy if he became a Heroic Spirit. With that in mind he gave up his body after his death, and he saved maybe one hundred people because of that contract._

_And he probably did that believing that he could save tens of thousands of people afterwards._

_How utterly stupid of him, Naruto knew enough about the Heroic Spirits to know that for sure. The knight would never be able to save people after his death because for a Heroic Spirit to be called upon, the place would already be a place of death._

_Heroic Spirits are summoned into only human created hell._

_They appear when the world is about to be destroyed by humans. Humans are the ones that will perish from their own wrong doings. As such the process of destruction must always be the same._

_Jealousy. Hatred. Selfishness. Desire._

_The man who loved people and tried to be of help to them was shown the same ugliness of humanity even after he died. He was called into such scenes and served his responsibility as a guardian._

_The knight killed._

_He killed and killed and killed. He killed everyone that was around him when he was summoned to save humanity as a whole. Naruto didn't know how many times the cycle repeated itself, too many to count, years layered upon years. Until even millennia would have seemed like the blink of an eye and still due to the contract he had signed with the world so long ago, the knight kept killing. Naruto had no idea how many times it happened but the knight will still likely be doing it long into the future._

_The knight had in the end been betrayed by many things. But at the end of it all, he was betrayed by the only thing he believed in, his ideal. Naruto felt himself waking and was glad, while not inherently horrifying like some of the other dreams he had he wanted this one to end, it was just, far too sad._

**XXX**

The blond woke slowly, somewhere he didn't recognise. He slipped out of the bed he had been sleeping on and blushed. Somehow he had been dressed in a casual shirt and new boxers. Someone had changed him while he was asleep, not cool. The blond calmed a little and reviewed his last memories, feeling faint, some red hair and then? Nothing, He must have passed out, that was the only answer that made sense. Moreover he had been taken to a safe place afterwards, most likely Tazuna's house the blond saw his bag in the corner and checked the time, three thirty am, dreamless sleep and the nightmares would start again tonight.

Naruto briefly considered going back to bed before discarding the idea. He had just had a good sleep no need to screw that up with a nightmare. He stretched, now what, the blond grimaced, time to see if he had damaged his circuit. Naruto sat in the lotus position on the floor, "trace on" he could feel the familiar rush of prana through his circuits, hmm, that was odd, it felt like he had more prana than before but how was that possible? It didn't take the blond long to figure it out, his circuit had time to settle so now everything was in perfect working order, whereas before he had just woken it up and his body was still adjusting to the newly awakened magic circuit. It wasn't a huge increase, by the feeling of things his overall units of prana had increased from twenty to twenty five, Naruto sighed. If he had used his previously available magic circuit more it probably would be around thirty units, but he hadn't and it wasn't. He guessed that was the price he paid for being to afraid to mess around with the power within him, no matter, he could improve himself now. Besides even only five extra units of prana was enough to celebrate, it would keep him alive longer if it came down to it.

Naruto delved deeper into the feeling of his prana, it seemed like his best circuit could use around fifteen units of prana while the newly awoken could only use ten. The more used of the two could still be improved more though, if Naruto had to guess he would say at optimum efficacy each of his twenty seven circuits could channel forty seven units of prana each. So if he could master them all then Naruto could, theoretically, use a grand total of one thousand two hundred and sixty nine units of prana. More if he made a contract with another magi and had them provide him with some of their own prana but he really didn't count that after all what were the odds that he would find a Magus willing to do that? Magi generally were not the most sharing of people, or helpful for that matter, he could probably form a contract of sorts with Lancer but that wasn't going to happen. Naruto did wonder about why even his only previously usable circuit was so low at prana use and efficacy but quickly shrugged it off. He had been using an incomplete circuit before, that probably had an effect on its efficacy and prana usage, all in all Naruto should probably be glad that he could use the circuit as well as he could.

"Trace off" Naruto stopped the prana flowing through his two active circuits, now what? The blond considered finding Kakashi, Yugao or Asuma and asking for a briefing but he suspected, rightly, that they would not take well to be woken at four in the morning after a battle. So what could he do, the blond rummaged through his pack, had to be something in there, his hands closed around a book and he pulled it out. The blond looked at the title once and blinked, he didn't own a book like this. The book's title stated clearly_ 'The Twelve Basic Celtic Runes And There A__pplication To Basic Thaumaturgy.'_ A small kaleidoscope rolled out of the bag, Naruto picked it up for a second before shrugging and putting it back in his bag and opening the book, it was better than having nothing to do after all.

**XXX**

When six am rolled around Naruto was still absorbed by his book, the book itself was fascinating to him. Thaumaturgy literally meant wonder working or the creation of miracles, and was the correct name for magecraft. The runes however were fascinating. They were kind of like the magecraft version of Fuinjutsu. Naruto was already well versed in the subject of Fuinjutsu, compared to most ninja anyway, but the blond was taking up runes as well. Fuinjutsu could be countered if given enough time and a suitably skilled Fuinjutsu user, but runes? Naruto would almost be willing to pay to see someone try to break down a runic array. The runes would give him an edge, after all it was extremely had to fight against something that you had no understanding of.

The book he had been given, he still had no idea who had given it to him but was sure the kaleidoscope was a clue, detailed the simple uses runes could have. Such as attaching them to clothing or a rock surface to achieve an effect, it also talked about two rune arrays. Runes by themselves were fairly powerful but runic arrays were where the real power of runes lay. Runic arrays used a verity of runes in conjunction with each other to either create a different effect than any could achieve on their own, or they could reinforce the effect of one particular rune. The book also mentioned using them to create bounded fields, but Naruto had no idea what the hell they were. Still the study was fascinating to him, so much so that he forgot to pay attention as the door opened and a familiar head of red hair entered the room.

"You're awake" the voice startled him and Naruto quickly put the book down and looked at Kushina who stared back with impassive eyes.

"What happened after I fainted?" Naruto asked, Kushina looked at him closely, violet-blue eyes holding far too much perception for Naruto's liking.

Kushina closed her eyes for a second and Naruto used the chance to nudge the book under his pillow, he could play it off as another book if it came down to it. But he didn't need anyone asking questions about what Taumaturgy was, he had enough problems as it was. Kushina's eyes opened again and she quickly looked the blond up and down. "Nothing much, the enemy retreated before we could inflict any real losses, then you and Kakashi-sensei fainted. We're at Tazuna's house now, breakfast should be ready in a few minutes if you want any and I came up to check on you."

Naruto almost started salivating at the very thought of breakfast, food, wonderful food! The blond pushed himself out of the bed ignoring the stiffness in his limbs. "Well then Kushina-san, why don't you go and join the others for breakfast and I will change and join you shortly." Naruto said, before looking down at himself, yes he really didn't want to go to breakfast wearing nothing but his boxers and a shirt. The red head nodded and walked out the door, Naruto let out a breath he didn't know he was holding before taking out a spare scroll and sealing the book on runes into it. Kushina paused in the hallway, she had seen the title of the book, Taumaturgy, that word was important, a clue? The red head shook it off and walked towards the dining room, she would discuss this with Setsuna when they arrived back at Konoha.

The blond arrived down stairs a few seconds later. To find a fully seated table containing all of his team mates and two people he had never met before. A young woman with long blue hair and a child who was glaring at Naruto like he had just killed his puppy. Naruto shrugged the kids glare off, the brat needed more practice and he had been glared at by professionals. His mother to state one example, damn that woman could be scary when she wanted to be, Kushina would be a rather close second. Naruto sat at the table, Kushina at his left, all of the surrounding ninja and civilians took that as a silent signal to start eating. Naruto couldn't help but wonder what was going on in Konoha right now, more importantly who had given him that book and what did they want?

**XXX**

The castle was a large affair, soaring towers and great ramparts. A medieval gate it's only entrance, this place was secret, such a secret in fact that no one bar one person even knew of its existence. Inside the tallest tower in the very top room sat what could only be described as an old man, his hands inside white silken gloves, a chess board in front of him. No, not a chess board, it would be insulting to call such a grand master piece a chess board. It was over four meters long and five meters wide, but the black and white squares were arranged as normal, each square exactly five centimetres by five centimetres, there were thousands of them inside the chess board. The board itself contained a multitude of pieces, ranging from ordinary chess pieces to shogi and Go pieces. On the board were exactly sixty nine statues, each depicting a different person, from King Arthur to a man once called Emiya Shirou and even the great Greek hero Hercules, to lesser more normal people, for lack of a better term, such as Tohsaka Rin and Emiya Kiritsugu.

The man picked up a bishop, one of many on the board and moved it slightly before smiling to himself, his strange red eyes glinting in the darkness. The old man stroked his white beard and sighed, he looked to the room around him, filled with books and knowledge of the science of Taumaturgy. The old man looked to the chess board again before picking up a small kaleidoscope and looking through it admiring all the different colours and then returning his attention to the board. "Now the players have all been set, show me some entertainment!" the man laughed to himself, a dark booming sound, as the only user of the second true magic looked at his convoluted game Kischur Zelretch Schweinorg laughed. His amusement would be at the cost of many lives and maybe the end of this dimension, Kischur Zelretch Schweinorg couldn't bring himself to care.

Now it should be noted that it was not a direct manipulation of Zelretch that caused the remnants of the cursed grail to appear in this world. That however did not mean that he would not be taking full advantage of that fact, this Heavens Feel would be the grandest of all. Zelretch smiled to himself before moving a small pawn forward "Yes, such a strange name really isn't it, the Heaven's Feel: The War for the Holy Grail" the vampire mused before returning his vision to the game.

**XXX  
**

Setsuna sighed as she entered her bedroom, it had been a long day between thrashing out who to include in the teams to how much to pay them and how much they should be told. In the end it was decided that they would be told close to everything but not it all. Still it had been a tiring day, they had also found, and altered, several seals inside the Hokage's office meant so people could listen in on whatever Minato was doing. Now every time Minato activated a privacy seal the eavesdroppers would only hear something useless like a D rank mission report or something, though the blond Hokage had made it a personal mission to track down and charge with treason whoever was dumb enough to place the seals there in the first place, Setsuna's money was on Koharu, though Danzo and Homura probably knew about them as well. Old bastards never could leave well enough alone.

The red head stepped into the shower and smiled as the hot water hit her body. It was relaxing and refreshing, her mind went back to the first day she had seen Naruto use those blades, the twin swords of yin and yang, black and white. Setsuna's face set into a frown, where was Naruto learning his skill with those blades from anyway? She had followed him for months and still she had yet to see a teacher, and yet those moves were definitely part of a style, one Setsuna had no knowledge of nor did she know anyone who used a sword form even remotely like Naruto's and if anyone in Konoha should know about sword forms it was an Uzumaki. In addition to their prowess in Fuinjutsu almost all Uzumaki were sword users and damned good ones too, that was why it was so strange for the red head to not be able to identify what kind of sword style her son was using. She had toyed with the idea that Naruto had made the style himself but quickly discarded it, it was too polished and well rounded, no this was a style that had already been made and Naruto was just learning.

The red head stepped out of the shower and put on her casual clothes, before looking at the clock twelve pm, she still had three hours before Akio and Mayumi would return. Just enough time to start on some seal ideas, the red head turned before spinning back to face the dresser, sitting there was a large leather bound black book, she approached cautiously. It would not have been the first assassination attempt on her life. She reached the book and eyed the title. _Basic Application's Of Thaumaturgy, by Tohsaka Rin_.Setsuna grimaced. She did not own a book like this. Nor did Minato to the best of her recollection, so it was probably a trap, contact poison maybe? The Namikaze matriarch made a few quick flicks of her fingers and surrounded the book with a barrier seal. Setsuna pulled out a kunai and flicked the front cover open and jumped back, a note fell out of the book and unfolded perfectly on the ground. The red head looked down and her eyes widened.

_To Miss Namikaze-Uzumaki Setsuna_

_I know as a fact that you are now aware of what your son is doing,_

_You wish to help him and be involved, yes?_

_Inside this book you will find the basics of an ancient science called Thaumaturgy._

_Naruto uses a variant of this science when he fights those shadows._

_When you finish this book I will send you another, a storm is coming_

_Namikaze-Uzumaki Setsuna, and your son is at it's centre, good luck._

_From the desk of Kischur Zelretch Schweinorg_

_P.S. I wouldn't kill you with a contact poison, give me a little more credit than that._

Setsuna looked at the note critically for a second before her fingers blurred again, and the barrier seal dissolved, the red head picked the book up almost reverently as she walked down the stairs and into the living room. The red head looked at the book for a second, her hands slightly trembling before she opened the front cover, the second page was just an index, the red head skipped that and opened straight to chapter one.

_Basic Application's Of Thaumaturgy_

_By, Tohsaka Rin_

_Chapter One: Magecraft/Thaumaturgy_

_To understand the intricacies of Thaumaturgy one first has to grasp one thing, that thing is that being a Magi means walking with death. Getting overconfident can kill you, your experiments could kill you, if your not careful even your own power could kill you from the inside out. This is something that all Magi should grasp before attempting to walk this path, be aware, you will die, you will most likely be alone when it happens and it will most likely be painful, that is the one and only truth that all Magi share with one another._

_A basic interpretation of Magecraft is a miracle that has been artificially recreated. Hence why we use the term Thaumaturgy to refer to Magecraft, as it is most definitely 'the creation of mysteries' or 'wonder working' depending on your personal translation of the word._

_Prana_

_Prana is the raw magical energy used to fuel all forms of Magecraft and other forms of True Magic or Sorcery. To put it another way Prana is the energy source that is used to actualise all of the __mysteries of Magecraft._

_Pana cannot exist independently or do anything by itself so is always bound to some sort of recipient. For that reason, the magi use it mostly by embedding it into an object or as a catalyst to initiate nature interference (Magecraft). The only exceptions to the said rule are the Holy Grail of the Einzbern's and Demon's, who recreate miracles by just releasing energy. As a side note to Demon's the most obvious of their recreation of miracles is a Reality Marble, which will be discussed in other books. Prana has been broken down into two different types Mana and Od, both of which are discussed below._

_Mana and Od_

_Mana and Od, these are the two basic energy sources found inside every magus, do not, DO NOT, attempt to forge a magic circuit (we will be covering more on magic circuits later) before having an in depth understanding of both energy sources. If you do try to do so then there is an extremely good chance that you are going to die, I will repeat do not attempt it._

_We will start with the greater of the two energy sources Mana._

_Mana is the life force of the planet and exists in the atmosphere. It is produced by the world itself. Sometimes called Gaia. While mana is usually found in great quantities, it takes a long time to replenish once it is used up. It is the primary source of energy for Nature Spirits and Elementals require it in order to materialise on this plain of existence as well as maintain themselves, a similar reference could be made for Demon's._

_The smaller of the two energy sources is Od, which will be covered in the section below._

_Od is the energy found within living organisms. Once depleted, the Magic Circuits that are stored in the soul begin to replenish it. Od is produced as long as one lives, but the amount a person can store varies from individual to individual. Though no records remain it can be assumed that it's name is likely derived from "Odic Force", which is a hypothetical life force._

_Difference Between Mana and Od_

_The difference between Mana and Od is their abundance. Mana can be found almost anywhere and in great quantities, thus it is called the Greater Source by the magi. As Od is the energy inside humans, it is much smaller in amount and is called the Lesser Source. Strictly speaking, Mana and Od are energy in its raw state, while Prana is the name given to the energy once it is converted by the Magic Circuits. Mana can be taken in accordingly with the capacities of the Magic Circuits, but the actual conversion process will take time._

_Regarding nature interference Magecraft mentioned before, at least for those of large-scale, activation requires the use of Mana regardless of the amount of Od that the Magus has. In fact, it is common practice among the Magi to start up their spells with Od and then keep them running with Mana. Only small-scale spells that do not interact with the environment directly are performed entirely with Od, an example of which would be Reinforcement. More on Reinforcement can be found in later chapters, it is advised that all Magi are at least capable of self-reinforcement before undertaking anything too strenuous._

_Prana itself does not have any elemental attribute. However, once embedded into an object that does have said attribute (such as jewels) or that is under the influence of Nature Spirits, it will attune itself to the elements in question until the moment that is released. An example would be if a Magus embedded Prana into a jewel containing a Nature Spirit of fire. When the Magus released the stored Prana it would take on a fire type nature in accordance with the spirit housed within the jewel._

_The magic energy itself is held only inside the body fundamentally and if released in the outer world, it will return to life force and be scattered into the Greater Source. This has also been expressed as "evaporation". Magic power is prone to merge with the fluids (such as blood or semen) of the Magus, and these fluids are good at holding in magic energy for some time even after leaving the body. Because of this, by drinking Magus' blood, one can replenish one's magic power._

Setsuna put down the book, which was a little much to absorb all at once. She would need some time to process the information. The things the book talked about were too outlandish for her to comprehend immediately, but it was something she could eventually understand. If the note was right then her son was using this Magecraft to fight against those shadows. It would explain how he was able to use techniques like summoning those blades without using chakra, instead he used this prana. Since she couldn't feel this energy, and Setsuna assumed that other sensors couldn't feel the use of this prana either, Naruto could freely wield it while staying beneath the radar as it were. Setsuna looked at the clock, it was almost three pm, the Namikaze matriarch stood up and walked to the kitchen to make herself something to eat, and she would need to think on this more latter. But right now she needed to help her two youngest in learning the family techniques after her lunch of course.

**XXX**

Kushina, Sasuke, Sakura, Choji, Shikamaru and Naruto sat in a circle waiting for their sensei to broach the important subject of, what the hell were they going to do now. Zabuza and his accomplice's were still out there, yes they did lose the demon brothers and three more bits of cannon fodder, but that was exactly it, they were cannon fodder and one thing everyone knows about cannon fodder is that it is easily replaceable. The sword wielder wasn't about to back down either so they would have to fight eventually, the question was when they would be back. Naruto personally, though he would not admit it, wanted a rematch with Lancer, he didn't know why, he just did.

Yugao, Asuma and Kakashi sat in a few chairs looking at their students and trying to figure out where to start. They already knew the tree walking and water walking exercises so they couldn't really assign them any more chakra control and expect it to be completed in the time they had. The three figured that they had about a week, when one took into consideration the opponents wounds and the amount of time they had to find new help. So what could they teach the kid's, the three Jonin looked at each other before nodding. Asuma stood up, he had more or less been elected as the official spokesperson of the trio. "Okay we're dividing up into two teams, team one will be fighting on the bridge while team two protects the house." Asuma stated, Naruto raised his hand to ask a question and Asuma nodded at the blond.

"I don't care where you throw me Asuma-sensei but that guy, Lancer, will be coming after me." The blond stated, Yugao looked intrigued.

"How do you know?" She inquired, Naruto shrugged.

"Just a hunch, something about our fight, I just know he will be the one to find me, after all he wants to fight me as much as I want to fight him." Naruto admitted, causing the others to look at him like he was a moron.

"Let me get this straight" Shikamaru stated in a slightly unnerved tone. "You and this guy fight once, ONCE, a fight so hard I might add that you fall unconscious immediately after. Now you're telling us that you voluntarily want to fight him again?" The lazy genius stated, somewhat torn between awe and absolute disbelief in Naruto's actions.

Naruto nodded "that sounds about right." Naruto admitted, rubbing his hair with one hand and chuckling.

The others just looked at him like he was insane. Then again, considering what he had been subjected to over the last three years that might be closer to the truth than Naruto was willing to admit. "You are insane" Kushina replied, it wasn't a question but a statement. The rest of the group nodded empathetically.

Choji decided to speak up "are you sure that Lancer guy is going to come after you?" the chubby boy asked.

Naruto nodded "Yes I am" there was no hesitation in his statement.

Shikamaru sighed "well then if that's the case I believe you" the pineapple haired boy stated. Drawing a surprised look from the others, the lazy genius just shrugged it off.

"Wait a second weren't you the one who not five minutes ago said he was crazy!?" Sakura asked in disbelief, Shikamaru nodded.

"Maybe not in that many words but more or less, that being said Naruto has always been good at guessing things like this, it's kind of like some kind of instinct." The lazy Nara finished.

"Why would someone that good want to fight the dobe?" Sasuke asked, Naruto sighed, why was he the dobe? Kiba was the dead last, Naruto freely admitted that his theory work was not what it could have been, but sleepless nights would do that to a person. But he was hardly a dobe, that being said he did probably rank as the lowest scorer in the academy of the team, sigh, which was so unfair. He saved their ungrateful asses for three years running and now what? He gets called a dobe, which was so unfair.

"Because he will get a better fight out of me rather than a weakling like you!" Naruto snapped back at the duck haired Uchiha.

"What was that dobe!?" Sasuke demanded, Naruto grabbed the front of the Uchiha's shirt and pulled him in close.

"I said he would get a better fight from me than you, weakling!" Naruto retorted, Sasuke's face contorted in rage.

"You think I'm a weakling!?, The what about you dobe, you were close to the bottom of the academy, like hell your stronger than me!" Sasuke shouted back, Naruto had a hand out to the side, his left hand already gripping the hilt of the weapon that had yet to exist. Thankfully it wasn't needed as a pair of chains forcibly separated the two and wrapped them up so they couldn't move. Naruto shook slightly out of fear before looking towards what he knew would be waiting for him. Hell entered his vision, Kushina was just sitting there her chains tightly constricting the both Sasuke and he, her hair slowly rising to form nine tail like appendages. It was times like this Naruto was glad for pre-planning, his hands made a discreet seal and he was ready to substitute with whatever happened to be convenient at a moment's notice. Right now Naruto was considering Sakura to be the best choice in the room, low stamina, low chakra reserves, not very fit, so almost no chance she would be able to resist his substitution. Or at least Naruto was praying like there was no tomorrow that, that was the case.

Ksuhina smiled at her two captives, "Naru-chan, Sasuke-chan" the red head stated, making Naruto shiver with the sheer amount of malice contained in her tone. The familiar suffix did not mean they were any safer either, no if anything that meant they were in more danger, Kushina only called people like that when she was about to hurt them badly. "Would you two kindly stop fighting so we can get on with something productive?" Kushina asked, Naruto followed his survival instincts and nodded, in an attempt to at the very least, stall and the vengeful goddess before him. Sasuke however didn't know Kushina quite so well and promptly snorted, Naruto instantly substituted with Sakura just as Kushina tapped both of the chains **"Raiton: Kusari" **Kushina declared smiling as her Raiton chakra raced down the chain's, shocking her two prisoners none to gently. The red head smiled murder at the Uchiha Genin "would you kindly stop fighting Sasuke-chan." Kushina asked, this time the Uchiha nodded his head.

Immediately Kushina was smiles and sunshine again, Naruto let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. Dear sweet Kami that had been close, he had seen a seriously pissed off Kushina before and had no desire to be on the receiving end of her wrath. "Now if we could please get back to the matter at hand?" Kakashi asked sounding amused by the situation overall. The others nodded in agreement, "good!"

"At any rate I would like to be left here at the house, I'll be of more use long range." Naruto stated, drawing surprised looks from the rest of the group. The blond shrugged "I'm a very good archer" he admitted sounding sheepish.

Yugao and Kushina's eyebrows rose, "really?" Yugao asked. "I've never heard of you using a bow before." The purple haired former ANBU stated, Kushina nodded in agreement. Naruto shrugged in an almost nonchalant manner but on the inside he was sweating bullets.

"There are a lot of things you don't know about me" Naruto replied glibly.

Yugao nodded "now that I will believe." She stated, anger simmering in her tone. "Care to tell me where you learned your sword style?" Yugao asked, Naruto could tell he was on thin ice right now. But how exactly was he supposed to answer that question.

"I came up with it. I figured that a false opening style would let me fight against opponents that were both stronger and faster than I was." Naruto replied, Yugao stood up and slapped him across the face.

"Bullshit!" The former ANBU stated. "Those moves were part of a well made, well thought out sequence. Even if you had started making this style three years ago those movements were far too fluid. Now tell me how you learned them Genin or I swear to Kami that I will have your head for insubordination!" Yugao growled out at the blond, Naruto kept up his poker face, barely. "Do you have any idea how reckless that style is, DO YOU!? If you miss even a single block you are going to die, what kind of moron taught you that style and how to use it!" Yugao demanded again, Naruto had only one choice, stick to his story.

"Like I told you Sensei, I created that style, that is the truth what more do you want from me!?" Naruto yelled back, Yugao snarled at the blond before she composed herself.

"Genin Namikaze-Uzumaki Naruto when we return to Konoha you will be coming with me to the Hokage, we will sort this out then and decide your punishment for lying to a superior officer while we are at it." Yuago said, her voice holding an eerie edge of calm to it. Naruto nodded, but on the inside he was having a panic attack. If they had a Yamanaka enter his mind he was screwed, right now Naruto could do nothing but sit there as his plans came crashing down around him and he had no way of salvaging them.

"Enough" Asuma interrupted, trying to get the group back on track. Causing both clan members to back down and Yugao to reign in her temper. The constantly smoking Jonin turned his attention to Naruto "is it true what you said are you really good at archery?" He questioned, Naruto nodded and Asuma sighed. "What's your best range?" the smoking Jonin asked.

Naruto considered it for a second, reinforcing his eyes as well as he could allowed him to see a maximum of two kilometres and keep track of any fast movement within that range. But he was not good enough to be firing arrows with any chance of hitting at that range, the blond looked back up at the smoker "about eight hundred meters." Asuma dropped his cigarette and looked back at the blond in disbelief.

"Eight... eight hundred meters?" He asked sounding a little dazed. Naruto smiled at his sensei's reaction.

"Yep from that far away I can guarantee a kill shot, hell I could probably shoot that cigarette out of your mouth." The blond stated, there was no pride in that statement, for Naruto it was simply cold hard fact. That wasn't to say that he was not proud of his ability, not the blond archer was very proud of his prowess with the bow, he simply didn't like advertising the fact.

The rest of the room look stunned, "N-Naruto, are you serious?" Kakashi asked, Shikamaru looked like he was in shock.

Choji picked up on his friend's mood "what's wrong Shika?" The brown haired Genin asked, Shikamaru shook his momentary shock off.

"That's crazy" were the first words out of the pineapple haired Genin's mouth. Making the people around him stare at him like he was crazy. "Y-You are joking right Naruto?" Shikamaru asked, Naruto shook his head and the lazy genius sighed. "How the hell did you get so good without anyone noticing?" Naruto shrugged again, Shikamaru almost growled at the lack of reaction.

"So the Baka can shoot a sharp piece of wood a long way, what's so impressive about that?" Sakura asked, Shikamaru looked at the woman like she was a moron.

"Do you have any idea how hard it would be to hit a target at eight hundred meters even on flat ground?" Shikamaru asked, the pinkette shook her head and the pineapple haired genius decided to enlighten her. "First of all he would actually have to see the target and where the kill points were, considering that it would be eight hundred meters away and most likely hidden by something that is an achievement in and of itself and after that? He would need the strength to pull the bow back, an arrow that wouldn't deviate off course, which means it would have to be sturdier and thus heavier than a normal arrow meaning more strength would be required. The bow itself would have to be damn hard to draw, then he would have to calculate wind speed and at eight hundred meters the Coriolis effect or the Earth's rotation comes into effect, that's not something you can calculate in advance either, Naruto would have to do all that while pulling back on an immensely difficult to pull bow. While using an arrow that is heavier than normal making him use even more strength while picking out his target and the bast path he could have the arrow travel to get to it. Do you have any idea how hard that would be?" Shikamaru asked again, Sakura shrugged it off.

"So? Think about it Shika all we have is what the Baka is telling us. If it's really as difficult as you saw it is then there is no way he could pull it off. You saw what he was like at the academy, Naruto was average at best and a rival for dead last at worst, if it's really that difficult then there is no way in hell that he could pull it off." Sakura stated. Shikamaru shook his head. There were too many things that just didn't add up about Namikaze-Uzumaki Naruto. His Kenjutsu, why he was better now than in the academy and now his archery skills, he was hiding something but what. Until Shikamaru knew what Naruto was hiding he was willing to believe whatever Naruto told them in regards to his skills considering how much he had obviously held back in the past.

Shikamaru chose to voice his thoughts in the most eloquent way he had available, he put on a deadpan expression and faced Sakura "you're a moron." The Nara stated before tuning out whatever response Sakura had for him.

"Quiet" Kakashi snapped not wanting to get drawn into another debate about Naruto's trustworthiness or lack thereof. "Naruto I take it you can prove that statement?" Kakashi asked, Naruto nodded smiling.

"You bet Kakashi-sensei!" The blond declared happily. Kakashi nodded and turned to Asuma.

"Asuma would you mind making a Kage Bunshin, let's see if he really can shoot a cigarette out of your mouth." Asuma nodded and made the clone, he may have been the overall spokesperson for the group of Jonin but Kakashi was unquestioningly the leader. He had more successful missions under his belt than either Yugao or him. Asuma made the cross shaped hand sign and in a puff of smoke another him appeared, the clone looked at Kakashi but it was Naruto who spoke.

"Go hide in the forest anywhere you like just so long as it's no more than eight hundred meters from the front door." The blond told the clone who got the nod from Kakashi and walked out of the house, Naruto stood up and walked up the stairs.

"Where are you going?" Kushina asked confused, Naruto gave a short laugh.

"To get my bow." The blond replied as if it was the most natural thing in the world, which it kind of was now that they thought about it, Naruto wasn't carrying a bow after all. The blond stopped inside his room, he would need something a little more than a normal bow. "Trace on" He could see it in his mind, a bow as black as midnight and more powerful than any other. This weapon was not meant to fire mere arrow's but broken phantasms, he felt the weight of the bow drop into his waiting hand, his left hand grasping the haft tightly. His right hand came out, a nameless sword appearing inside it, its form shifted, elongating and reforming until an arrow of twisted metal was held there. Naurto turned and walked out of the room, he would only need one shot.

The others gasped when they saw the bow, huge was an understatement. The black monstrosity was over two meters long, two meters and fifteen centimetres to be precise. Naruto looked to Kakashi who nodded, the blond jumped up to the roof of the house, his body becoming reinforced by a mix of prana and chakra. His eye sight sharpened, his eyes moved, where? where was his target? He found it, just a glimpse, hidden behind a tree, it would not save him and the arrow of twisted metal was laid onto the bow string. Naruto breathed in deeply as he drew back, a phrase making itself known inside his mind as he did. The blond took aim. His mind went blank as his body went on autopilot as if remembering a skill it had long forgotten. The blond still saw his target, he would need more penetrating power in his arrow, the phrase came to his mind once more and he spoke "My bone shall twist all its way in" The arrow changed taking on a more spiral like quality, the boy whose body was on autopilot did not notice. Only Kushina caught the phrase, it was less than even a whisper. The arrow was loosened. Those below barely caught the flash of silver as it tore through the air. Asuma grabbed his heart and shivered, prompting the others to look at him.

"Kid took my clone out alright, that arrow punched straight through the tree I was hiding behind and through my heart straight after. From what the clone saw before it popped it was going to keep going as well." Asuma replied, Naruto came back to himself and smiled, a perfect shot, as always. The blond dropped from the roof to stand in front of the Jonin.

"Sooo how did I do?" Naruto asked flippantly, as if he didn't already know the answer to that question.

"You did fine, Naruto" Kakashi stated eye smiling. "Who taught you how to use a bow?" The silver haired Jonin asked, Naruto smiled.

"That was also a privet project. I just got this good by trying it out every day, as for the bow I got it from one of the merchants that come by every year for the festival. I think he came from Tetsu or something." Naruto smoothly completed his lie, this one would hopefully be better received than his last, or at least it should be. After all Naruto knew as a fact that he was the only archery practitioner in Konoha, or at least he had never met any other. Kakashi just looked at him with far, far, more inelegance and perception in his eyes than Naruto was comfortable with.

"Well if that it then it's fine" Kakashi said eye smiling, Naruto heaved an internal breath of relief. "Naruto you will be assigned to the house and be our long range support should be need it, we'll send up a signal if we do." Kakashi said eye smiling, Naruto nodded.

**XXX**

The remainder of the week passed in much the same manner. There training was taken over by various sensei's, Choji and Shikamaru worked with Asuma. To further their Taijutsu skills, Sakura and Sasuke worked with Kakashi in Genjutsu and Ninjutsu finally Kushina and Naruto worked with Yugao in Kenjutsu. The Kenjutsu mistress had seemingly taken it upon herself to beat the red knight's style out of Naruto, it wasn't going well. Sasuke had once bragged to the others that he would know the most Ninjutsu on the team after this week was over, Naruto let him have his moment as he didn't feel like bursting Sasuke's bubble.

Naruto was easily the most well rounded Genin in cell one. His Taijutsu was nearing low Chunin, Genjutsu while he couldn't use any could break them up to C ranks and as for Ninjutsu. Naruto knew no less than ten Jutsu, one E rank, two D rank, five C rank and two A rank. Most of his Jutsu were all from different elements, contrary to popular belief every ninja could use every element their affinity just determined what elements they would be most proficient with and their chakra would be most predisposed to using. That being said Naruto was worthless at Doton Jutsu, he had tried learning one once but gave up after two weeks and the technique was a D rank too, that just added insult to his injury. That being said he was very good at both Futon and Raiton techniques, while being average at Katon and Suiton. Naruto guessed that he was either a Futon or Raiton user by chakra nature, considering how easy he found both of them to use Naruto thought he may have already developed a second nature affinity. But he still hadn't found the time to get his hands on some damned chakra paper to find out for sure. Naruto's extensive list of Jutsu by Genin standard was a result of his lack of sleep. He would occasionally sneak into his father's study and copy some of the scrolls for techniques to learn, he habitually kept them at no better than C rank. Any higher would have raised too many unwanted questions. Another reason he didn't do it too often was that it would raise a lot more questions if he knew thirty or so Jutsu, so Naruto kept the list short and sweet, every technique was both something he could use and he had trained to be good at them.

Other than that Naruto's Kenjutsu and Fuinjutsu were both far above what a Genin's should be. His Kenjutsu reaching somewhere between mid and high Chunin and was quite skilled in Fuinjutsu, though the blond would voluntarily admit that Kushina was his better in that area, Naruto had simply spread himself out to far to keep up with Kushina in the area of Fuinjutsu. Kushian mainly focused on her Taijutsu, Kenjutsu and Fuinjutsu, which was a smaller list than Naruto needed to focus on, as a matter of fact if it wasn't for Naruto inheriting the knight's sword style Kushina probably would have surpassed him in Kenjutsu as well, she certainly had in Taijutsu. That being said, even though he was the most well rounded Genin in the team Naruto knew he would have to start choosing what to focus on and what he could do without. Kenjutsu and Fuinjutsu were musts for him, not that he really had a choice in the Kenjutsu part and Naruto had an ambition to get to when it came to Fuinjutsu. He would probably focus on Ninjutsu last of all, he was good at it and more than a proficient user already as his Jutsu library could attest to.

The teams had been decided as Naruto, Shikamaru and Choji as the home team, Asuma serving as their leader. With Kushina, Sasuke and Sakura serving as the bridge team, accompanied by Yugao and Kakshi. Still their collective stay at Tazuna's hadn't been all sunshine and smiles, Inari had snapped one night and yelled about how all of them should leave and didn't know true suffering. Naruto had to hold back some biting comments about the child, as had Sasuke. Naruto had tried very hard that day to avoid mention one of the knight's memories to the child, the memory of the City Of The Dead would have been more than enough to convince Inari that he had barely suffered at all. It had taken quite a bit of effort on Naruto's part to restrain himself from doing something he would eventually regret to the boy.

Then the promised day arrived, the day that Zabuza should return on, the bridge team left. Before they did Naruto whispered into Kushina's ear a repeat of the words she had said to him before he fought against Lancer 'don't die'. The red head just laughed as she walked outside the house, it was the first voluntarily contact that Naruto had with Kushina in three years, discounting the hug he had given her when they graduated as Genin.

The home team didn't have to wait long, Naruto looked at the window and grimaced, Lancer at the head of around twenty bandits and if his eyes did not deceive him Rokushō Aoi, the thief that stole the Raijin no ken. Naruto stood and walked out the front door, Asuma, Choji and Shikamaru flanking him.

The blue clad counterfeit knight gave the blond a lazy wave. "Yo, how yah been?" Lancer asked in a tone as if he was speaking to an old friend, but the murderous intent radiating off him made most of the men around him shiver. There would be no talk that meant anything to the blue clad lance user. No he was here for one reason and one reason only, to kill Naruto, that was his only purpose in being here. Naruto took a single step forward as did Lancer. Killing intent was radiating off the two counterfeit knights like heat. Lancer flicked his head towards the forest "let's take this elsewhere." Naruto nodded and the two jumped off, leaving Asuma, Choji and Shikamaru to face off against the bandits and the sword thief. Asuma grimaced, it looked like the bridge team had lost its long range support should it need it.

The blue and red clad knights stopped when they were far enough into the forest. Naruto's hands came out to grasp the hilt of the weapons that have yet to exist. He could feel it inside his head, the hammer had been cocked, in a second it would fall and the 'bullet' would enter his brain turning him into a Magus. "Trace on" Naruto declared, Kanshou and Bakuya forming in his hands like old friends, a mere extension of his limbs. There is ten meters between the two. Lancer could cross that distance in two seconds, maybe less. Naruto takes his stance, blades loosely at his sides, Lancer grins at his enemy. There is no need for talk between the two. They both have only one objective, to kill the person in front of them. There death match will not be stopped this time, no one can stop it. The only reason Lancer retreated previously was Zabuza, a man who is not here now and as such Lancer will finally have his death match. Naruto will not allow the person in front of him to walk away from this encounter alive, he didn't know why but every cell inside his body was screaming at him to kill the blue clad lance user.

Lancer held out his hand and a bloody red spear formed inside it, Gae Bolg, the Spear of Impaling Barbed Death. An attack utilised by that spear when it is used in its true function as a noble phantasm is death. It will out manurer every evasion and smash through any defence, therefore it is fatal. Lancer took his stance, a leaf slowly made it's way to the ground. Naruto looked at his opponent and found himself being studied as well, his grip on the twin swords. The leaf joined it's brethren on the floor of the forest and the two counterfeit knights charged, the cursed lance came forward to split the head of the red knight as the twin blades came up to meet it, and steel screamed.

**Wrought Iron Hero Chapter Five- End**

**CLIFFHANGER NO JUTSU, KAI!**(always wanted to do that)

And so ends chapter five, ah you were a bitch to write. Still all the field setting I'm doing has a purpose. Now I know I kind of glossed over what they did in wave but it was the wave mission you've all seen it a hundred times before and I really didn't feel like writing it. Moving right along, the explanation of terms is below.

**Glossary of Terms**

Alteration- A type of Magecraft that allows a Magus to give an item or object an affect or ability that it did not have before, such as changing a sword into an arrow by altering it's basic make-up and components then reforming the sword into an arrow.

**Broken Phantasm- **If a Noble Phantasm is packed with prana, it can be made to explode after striking its target. Effectively a Broken Phantasm is a Noble Phantasm that has been packed with so much power it becomes extremely volatile, when it explodes the attack is one rank more powerful than the Noble Phantasm would be normally. An example would be turning a B rank Noble Phantasm into a Broken Phantasm, once the weapon becomes a Broken Phantasm it's next attack will deal an A rank in damage as opposed to it's normal B rank. That being said this method is not without it's drawbacks. Once the Noble Phantasm has been turned into a Broken Phantasm it will be destroyed after executing it's next attack and as Noble Phantasms are all but impossible to repair the weapon is permanently lost after being used in this fashion. There are a few notable exceptions to this rule that will be covered later on in story.

**Dead Apostles- **are humans that became vampires either by the use of Magecraft or by the actions of another vampire of similar nature. I could mention the 'Dead' here but I won't when and if I make use of them in story then I will put an entry in for them. For more indepth information on both Dead Apostles and the 'Dead' check Type Moon Wiki.

**Gae Bolg, Reversal of Cause and Effect- **Okay I'm not sure how well I explained Gae Bolg's abilities in story so let me try again here. Gae Bolg when used as a Noble Phantasm has the ability to invert cause and effect. The best example I can give is that when you place as knife and press down on something it is cut, follow me so far? Since you put pressure on the knife it cut down, the effect of your action is that what ever was under the knife is cut into, see cause and effect. Gae Bolg has the ability to reverse this, so instead the action would be like this, what ever was under the knife was cut, as a result you put pressure on it, rather than the other way around. When taken into account that Gae Bolg always strikes the heart the reversal of cause and effect is quite simple, your heart is already pierced before the attack is launched. In effect you are already dead before the attack has begun, therefore the path of the spear is merely placed in latter to prove that you are dead to the rest of the world. I really hope you guys understood that.

**Gaia- **BasicallyGaia is the world and the world has it's own will and rules. Magecraft violates these rules and as such Gaia exerts it will against Magecraft and attempts to crush it. Magecraft can resist being crushed but only if it is being constantly fed a power source, such as Od or Mana. Once the power source is taken away Magecraft will be crushed by the will of Gaia.

**Heavens Feel: The War For The ****Holy Grail- **Think of it as an all out war between seven Magi. These seven Magi summon up seven familiars called Servants who are hero's that are either based off actual historical events or notable legends. I won't go into all the little details as it would take ten to twenty pages in and of itself but that is Heavens Feel in a nut shell. Oh did I mention that the Holy Grail could grant any wish no matter how impossible, yeah definitely worth killing for right?

**Magecraft- **There are around a thousand different rules for Magecraft on Type Moon Wiki so please allow me to be brief and to the point. Magecraft is ANYTHING that can be realised through scientific means but has instead been realised through mystical means. An example is Naruto creating a normal sword, yes anyone who had a proper knowledge of forging techniques could do the same but that would be through Scientific means. Since Naruto used prana in order to do so his blade creation is considered to be Magecraft.

**Magi- **Plural of Magus.

**Magic Circuits- **Is a pseudo-nervous system that spreads itself through the human body and what qualifies a person to be a Magus. Originally, its function was to just replenish a person's life force whenever the amount of Od inside his body reaches zero, but humans learned how to control it and use it to perform mysteries/Magecraft. It is not uncommon to think that a Magic Circuit is literally part of a Magus's body, this is not the case, Magic Circuits exclusively reside in a Magus's soul. It is possible to turn one nerves into a pseudo Magic Circuit but it is also a quick way to kill yourself so don't do it. As like any other organ, the number of Magic Circuits that one possesses is determined at birth and cannot decrease or increase naturally. But it is possible to change that number artificially through a number of methods. One of those methods is through the establishment of a mystic pass between two magi from which the Circuits can transferred. As the Circuits are located in the soul, a fusion of body and mind is required during the transplant. However, the process carries the same risks and complications as a transplant of organs. Furthermore, as the Magic Circuits become unstable if tampered while in use, there is a possibility of mutual destruction if a contract similar to that between a magus and his familiar has not been established beforehand. It should also be noted that through continued use of the magic that the caster is most suited for that the Circuits can grow in capacity through experience, this is called improving the quality of the circuits. As such it is possible for a Magus with a low number of Circuits but high quality to overpower a Magus with more Circuits. The best known example of this would be Aozaki Aoko also know as Miss Blue. Who can and will be in this Fan Fic if I can figure out how to get her in her without completely screwing the balance.

**Magus-** One who wields Magecraft.

**Mana- **I actually feel I explained this quite well in this chapter but I will do so again. Mana is the free flowing Prana of the planet, it is more powerful than Od but takes longer to regenerate, for more information refer to the whole section in this chapter virtually dedicated to explaining Magecraft.

**Noble Phantasm- **Are "crystallised mysteries", armaments made using the imagination of humans as their core, and weapons or abilities owned by Hero's or Heroic Spirits(again will be explained in story later). They are the embodiment of the ultimate mysteries of a hero that symbolises his or her existence through historical facts and anecdotes. They can be general weapons, such as swords, lances, and bows, or support items, such as rings and crowns. They can also be abstract concepts, like abilities, curses, and changes to the environment and its physical properties. Noble Phantasms are considered to be a Servant's trump card and are activated by channelling prana into them and releasing their true names. This can only be done by their true owners.

Noble Phantasms far outrank other non-legendary items, meaning that a C ranked Noble Phantasm is the equivalent to an A or A+ ranked normal attack. Several examples of a Noble Phantasm's power; dragon-slaying swords, shoes that can run far and wide, god-killing demonic swords, and Hazanken, a weapon in Chinese legends that can only be swung once, but is said to be able to even slice through mountains. Another good example of a Noble Phantasm would be King Arthur's Excalibur. There are cases where the nature of the Noble Phantasm is not actually a true crystallised mystery, such as Archer's Unlimited Blade Works, which is magecraft that symbolizes him, and Li Shu Wen's No Second Strike, which is the quintessence of his martial arts. Sasaki Kojirou is a case of a Heroic Spirit without a Noble Phantasm due to his status as a wraith, but his technique, Tsubame Gaeshi, has managed to be on par with Noble Phantasms without the use of magecraft. In fact that attack is so badass I want to expand on that. Tsubame Gaeshi literally attacks from three places at once in a single move. Okay not to impressive when you think about what kind of things the ninja in Naruto can do but please let me explain. This attack uses no prana no chakra, no energy source of any kind it is the result of pure skill. The attack comes from three angles at the same time to kill the opponent leaving them unable to dodge, parry or block. Originally it was supposed to be used to cut a swallow out of the air, after awhile the samuari decided it was impossible and then decided fuck it and did it anyway. He did this so many times and got so good at it that **reality gave up** and the attack now comes from thee places at once as it actually refracts dimensions. In simple words, he launches one sword swing and somehow manages to attack with three, at exactly the same time, his sword is legitimately in three places at once.

**Od- **Od is the prana found inside living organisms, for more information read through the chapter again.

**Prana- **is the power source used to actualise the mysteries of Magecraft. Yeah that is about as clear as I can make it.

**Projection- **a Magecraft that materialises objects, in accordance to the caster's imagination, through the use of prana. The created object slowly fades away after being created, allusion to the fact that said object is made out of "nothing". The more precise tha Magus is with there metal image the better the projection will be and the longer it will last before being destroyed. Tracing is a special type of Projection used by both Archer and Naruto, please see the entry below.

**Reinforcement- **This is one of those exactly what it says on the can moments. This style of Magecraft is arguably the simplest to learn and yet the hardest to perfect. The idea is simple the Magus adds prana to an object reinforcing it. Reinforcing an object does not mean that the object it simply stronger. The best example would be a knife, if reinforcement was applied to a knife then it would not only be stronger and more durable but also sharper and better balanced. As reinforcement reinforces the entire object and it's functions not just it's durability. The reason it is one of the harder Magecrafts to master is simple, you can't just push prana into something and expect it to work. Push in too much or apply it in the wrong place or the wrong way and the object will break and if your applying reinforcement to your body at the time...well I'm sure you get the idea. To successfully apply reinforcement to an object the Magus must first have a very good understanding of its make up and function otherwise it is probably going to backfire, badly.

**Sorcery/True Magic- **As I talked about earlier, Magecraft is anything that is scientifically possible through mundane means but achieved by mystical means instead. Sorcery or True Magic on the other hand is completely different. Sorcery is something that neither science nor Magecraft can replicate no matter the time or funds invested. An example would be Zalritch's ability to move through the multi-verse.

**The Root-** Okay I am going to make the assumption that you understand the multi-verse theory, if not go look it up I am not explaining it to you. The Root is the beginning of everything, the very point of where the multi-verse started and it houses limitless knowledge and power. If it helps, think of it like God if God was a place rather than a person or a being.

**Tracing- **is the personal variation of Gradation Air that Archer and Naruto use, referred as _Tracing_ due the unique aria, "Trace On", that is used for its activation. Tracing greatly differs from normal Projection in the fact that not only does it reproduce the shape and substance of an object, but also its entire history as well. Objects created with tracing are slightly inferior due to the fact that only so much information can be gathered by sight alone, and Noble Phantasms are degraded by an entire rank. The only exception to this is Avalon, which Archer can replicate perfectly due to his body preserving a complete record of it after having been fused with it for over a decade. Objects need to be seen directly in order to be traced. Objects seen through shared memories, such as Caliburn seen through and King Arthur's eyes can be properly traced.

Shirou and Archer mentally divide the process of Tracing into seven steps, which include:

Judging the concept of creation

Hypothesising the basic structure

Duplicating the composition material

Imitating the skill of its making

Sympathising with the experience of its growth

Reproducing the accumulated years

Excelling every manufacturing process

Due to the extra effort, it is possible to produce incredibly stable ordinary items that can remain in the world for hours, day's or even weeks after their creation. Furthermore, whenever replicating mystical objects such as Noble Phantasms, it is possible to faithfully copy their special abilities and any skill that its owner performed are available for use. The reason this is possible is due to the nature of Unlimited Blade Works, which at a glance, records the history, composition, and design of what the user sees, and then provides the necessary materials needed to reproduce them. The actual reproduction happens within Unlimited Blade Works, and is then brought into the real world at need via Projection. If the image of the projection is interrupted in any way, the item will be physically weak and shatter upon physical impact. It is also possible to apply Reinforcement and Alteration to objects recorded within Unlimited Blade Works, as demonstrated with Caladbolg II.


End file.
